The Dead-Ends of Modern City-Making and the Conceptual Challenge of Nikos A. Salingaros
There is much evidence suggesting that the legacy of Modernist design in architecture and urbanism, based on stale assumptions and exhausted ideology of Le Corbusier and his followers, has reached its dead-end and that a new paradigm for rethinking urbanism is badly needed. Though there had been various ways of dealing with the legacy of Modern urbanism, and many urban planners as well as urban designers choose different ways of approacing their subject, this legacy still largely dominates in the global urban landscapes. Nikos A. Salingaros, an internationally renowned mathematician and physicist turned into urban theorist and critic has developed completely new intelellectual tools to deal with problems of urban spaces. His theoretical framework introduces challenging possibilities of renewing current architectural and urban theory as well as thr practice of urban design. Being strongly associated with the thinking of renowned architectural theorist and practitioner Christopher Alexander, he nevertheless constructed important theoretical concepts of his own and his theoretical findings can be applied while solving a large number of urgent urban problems. The article examines his concepts and ideas of urban design and city-making and practical suggestions.
