Heterotopia, literally meaning ‘other place’, is a rich concept in urban design that describes a space that is on the margins of ordered or civil society, and one that possesses multiple, fragmented or even incompatible meanings. The term has had an impact on architectural and urban theory since it was coined by Foucault in the late 1960s but it has remained a source of confusion and debate since. Heterotopia and the City seeks to clarify this concept and investigates the heterotopias which exist throughout our contemporary world: in museums, theme parks, malls, holiday resorts, gated communities, wellness hotels and festival markets. With theoretical contributions on the concept of heterotopia, including a new translation of Foucault’s influential 1967 text, Of Other Space and essays by well-known scholars, the book comprises a series of critical case studies, from Beaubourg to Bilbao, which probe a range of (post)urban transformations and which redirect the debate on the privatization of public space. Wastelands and terrains vagues are studied in detail in a section on urban activism and transgression and the reader gets a glimpse of the extremes of our dualized, postcivil condition through case studies on Jakarta, Dubai, and Kinshasa. Heterotopia and the City provides a collective effort to reposition heterotopia as a crucial concept for contemporary urban theory. The book will be of interest to all those wishing to understand the city in the emerging postcivil society and post-historical era. Planners, architects, cultural theorists, urbanists and academics will find this a valuable contribution to current critical argument.
Author(s): Michiel Dehaene, Lieven De Cauter
Edition: 1
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 360
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
Heterotopia in a postcivil society......Page 16
Part 1 Heterotopology ‘A science in the making’......Page 24
Of other spaces* (1967)......Page 26
Heterotopia: an ecology......Page 44
Heterotopia: anamnesis of a medical term......Page 54
Part 2 Heterotopia revisited......Page 64
The many mirrors of Foucault and their architectural reflections......Page 66
Heterotopias of difference......Page 88
The space of play: Towards a general theory of heterotopia......Page 100
Part 3 The mall as agora – the agora as mall......Page 116
Heterotopia of the theme park street......Page 118
Between shopping malls and agoras*: A French history of ‘protected public space’......Page 130
‘A kind of instinct’: The cinematic mall as heterotopia......Page 150
Part 4 Dwelling in a postcivil society......Page 164
The gated community as heterotopia......Page 166
A master-planned community as heterotopia: The Villages, Florida......Page 178
The ‘institutionalization’ of heterotopias in Singapore......Page 192
Part 5 Terrains vagues: Transgression and urban activism......Page 202
Public-space heterotopias: Heterotopias of masculinity along the Tel Aviv shoreline......Page 204
‘. . . those marvellous empty zones at the edge of cities’: Heterotopia and the ‘dead zone’......Page 216
Stalker unbounded: Urban activism and the terrain vague as heterotopia by default......Page 228
Part 6 Heterotopia in the splintering metropolis......Page 238
‘Rubbing the magic lamp’*: Heterotopian strategies in London’s eastern City fringe......Page 240
Flow Urbanism: The heterotopia of flows......Page 260
Heterotopias of illusion: From Beaubourg to Bilbao and beyond......Page 272
Part 7 Heterotopia after the polis......Page 286
The heterotopian divide in Jakarta: Constructing discourse, constructing space......Page 288
Dubai offshore urbanism......Page 300
‘Dead society’ in a ‘cemetery city’: The transformation of burial rites in Kinshasa......Page 310
Afterthoughts......Page 322
Heterotopia unfolded?......Page 324
Notes on contributors......Page 338
Illustration credits......Page 342
Index......Page 346
