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Atlas der schrumpfenden Städte/Atlas of Shrinking Cities /// 

Eds. Philipp Oswalt and Tim Rieniets. With editorial assistance from Elke Beyer, Anke Hagemann, Kristina Herresthal, and Henning Schirmel, 160 pp., 37.5 x 26.7 cm, with numerous color illustrations, German/English

Hatje Cantz Publishers, spring 2006

ISBN 3-7757-1714-5, 39.80 euros

Which cities shrink? Where are these cities? What processes lie behind shrinking? Atlas of Shrinking Cities has approximately 30 world maps, 50 diagrams, 40 city portraits, 15 lexical essays and an index of cities to document this global phenomenon and make it comprehensible visually by means of an innovative graphic presentation. In four chapters, illustrations, charts, and statistics disclose the reasons behind urban shrinking, which range from demographic developments and migration patterns to shortages of resources, the destruction of nature, and transformations in types of settlement. Case studies of shrinking cities from a variety of continents illustrate the concrete effects of global processes of transformation. The index shows population changes over the past 50 years for every shrinking city with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Index of Content and Introduction


Shrinking Cities - Volume 1: International Research /// 

Edited by Philipp Oswalt for the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (2005)
736 pages, 503 illustrations, 389 in color
Softcover, ISBN-10 3-7757-1682-3, ISBN-13 978-3-7757-1682-6 (English)

Whether in Great Britain or Belgium, in Finland, Italy, Russia, Kazakhstan or China: cities are shrinking the world over. Whereas in the past the growth of the megalopolis has been at the center of the urban planning debate, in other places zones of shrinkage were developing, which were characterized by enormous population losses and high rates of unemployment. Globalization and the transition to post-socialism have accelerated this process even more. 

Using concrete examples, this volume first analyses the causes and dynamics of shrinkage processes worldwide. Detroit, Manchester and Liverpool, Ivanovo (Russia) and Halle and Leipzig are all at the center of an international investigation of living conditions and cultural change in shrinking urban regions. Artist's contributions help sensitize viewers to this highly explosive phenomenon which poses a completely new social challenge.

With texts by Regina Bittner, Robert Fishman, Yasuyuki Fuji, Linda Grant, Dave Haslam, Jerry Herron, Susanne Hauser, Wolfgang Kil, Thomas van Leeuwen, Klaus Müller, Klaus Ronneberger, Sergej Sitar, Thomas J. Sugrue, Katherine Verdery, Kevin Ward, and many others.; Photos by Stan Douglas, John Ganis, Ken Grant, Bas Princen, Tom Wood, Tobias Zielony and others.

Index of Contents and Introduction (pdf)


Shrinking Cities, Vol. 2: Interventions /// 

Edited by Philipp Oswalt for the Kulturstiftung des Bundes
896 pages, 478 illustrations, 369 in color, Hatje Cantz Publishers, June 2006; ISBN-10 3-7757-1711-0 or ISBN-13 978-3-7757-1711-3, 39,80 euro.

In dealing with shrinking cities, classical urban design and city planning reach their limits. In the face of this new challenge, new paths are taken: the "hard" tools of construction and deconstruction are joined with the "soft" tools of political, social, cultural, and communicative interventions.

This book provides an international overview of experimental concepts for action for shrinking cities from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban construction, the media, performance, and art. The approaches of these articles range from artistic intercessions and self-empowerment projects through architectural and landscape interventions, strategies of media communication and city marketing to new legal regulations and utopian designs. Some of the works presented were commissioned in the framework of the Shrinking Cities project (in the expose P/SC:); some were existing projects (in the expose P:) of recent decades from the USA, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Russia, or Japan.

Contains: Projects by Will Alsop, Ruedi Baur, Florian Beigel, Chaos Computer Club, Crimson, Jeremy Deller, M. J. Ginzburg, Gordon Matta-Clark, muf, Hidetoshi Ohno, OMA, Cedric Price, Andreas Siekmann, Robert Smithson, Superflex, Oswald Mathias Ungers, and many more.

Essays by Ash Amin, Regina Bittner, Wolfgang Engler, Robert Fishman, Dan Graham, David Harvey, Juan Herreros, Bart Lootsma, and many more.

Index of Contents and Introduction (pdf)




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