BECOMING PLACES

(London: Routledge, 2010)

‘Becoming Places’ is about the slippery ways in which who we are becomes wrapped up with where we are. Drawing on the social theories of Deleuze and Bourdieu, the book analyzes the sense of place as socio-spatial assemblage and as embodied habitus. The book is based in a broad range of case studies from nationalist monuments and new urbanist suburbs to urban laneways and avant garde interiors. Through these cases a range of questions is explored. What is neighborhood character? How do squatter settlements work and does it matter what they look like? Can architecture liberate? How do courthouses legitimate authority? How do rhizomatic practices shape the meanings of public space? How do monuments and public spaces shape or stabilize national identity? The thread that ties these together is identities and places in states of becoming: character becomes caricature, closed becomes open, interior becomes landscape, illegal becomes legal, hotel becomes brothel, public becomes private – and vice versa in each case. ‘Becoming Places’ is a book about the unfinishedness of place and identity.

CONTENTS

1. MAKING SENSE OF PLACE
           
2. PLACE AS ASSEMBLAGE
                  
3. SILENT COMPLICITIES

4. LIMITS OF CRITICAL ARCHITECTURE              

5. SLIPPERY CHARACTERS
Defending and Creating Place Identities
(with Ian Woodcock and Stephen Wood)
           
6. BECOMING PROSPEROUS
Informal Urbanism in Yogyakarta             
(with Wiryono Rharjo)

7. URBANISING ARCHITECTURE
Rem Koolhaas and Spatial Segmentarity

8. OPEN COURT
Transparency and Legitimation in the Courthouse   

9. SAFETY BECOMES DANGER
Drug-use in Public Space (with John Fitzgerald)

10. NEW ORDERS: Monas and Merdeka Square       (with Eka Permanasari)      
                  
11. URBAN SLIPPAGE (with Kasama Polakit)