Space and Anti-Space: The Fabric of Place, City and Architecture
By Barbara Littenberg and Steven Peterson (ORO Editions, 2020).      
?I regard the revival of the city as far more important than any survival of Modern Architecture [because] the object-building interpreted as a universal proposition represents the demolition of Public Life.? -Colin Rowe
Steven Peterson was a student and later a colleague of Colin Rowe, and Peterson Littenberg?s urban projects are greatly influenced by Rowe?s views on the city. This book is a series of essays on architecture and urban design, culminating in Peterson Littenberg?s proposal for the World Trade Center site in New York City. The theme of Space versus Anti-Space is first directed to the conception of architectural space, comparing the relative plasticity, poché and configurative nature of works of architecture as diverse as Borromini?s San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane and Louis Kahn?s Erdman Hall, to the relatively unconfigured free plans of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. (There is an entire chapter dedicated to Mies.) The authors then address the Space/Anti-Space theme as it applies to the urban fabric. This section starts with a comparison of two similarly configured peninsulas?New York City?s Lower Manhattan and Shanghai?s Pudong. Manhattan has a rich infrastructure of streets and blocks, some dating from the 17th century (Space) while Pudong is a total urbanistic failure with its towers in a largely residual and undi...