Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in Twentieth-Century European Culture

by Ken Worpole

Here Comes the Sun looks at how social reformers, planners and architects in the early twentieth century tried to remake the city in the image of a sunlit, ordered utopia. While much has been written about architectural modernism, Worpole concentrates less on buildings and more on the planning of the spaces in-between - the parks, public squares, open-air museums, promenades, public pools and other public leisure facilities. Life in the open...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861890737
• ISBN13: 9781861890733
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.7" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

How open-air public spaces become sought-after commissions

Here Comes The Sun: Architecture And Public Space In Twentieth-Century European Culture focuses on developments in Northern Europe in terms of the planning of the "spaces between", the connective tissue of the modern city in the form of parks, public squares, open-air museums, promenades, lidos, and other public leisure facilities, including cemeteries. Educator, activist and author Ken Worpole demonstrates how open-air public spaces become sought-after commissions and projects for many early modernist architects. The reader is provided examples of utopian experiments such as Port Sunlight and Bournville, and discussions of the influence of Ruskin and William Morris. A very highly recommended contribution to urban planning studies history and reference collections, Here Comes The Sun shows how town planning became an internationalist, modernizing movement and an important, essential aspect of urban and cultural policy development and implementation today.