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Danish
architect Jan Gehl has become something of a living legend in the urban
design field. Founding partner of Gehl Architects, he was a professor
at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and has taught and lectured
throughout the world. His most famous book to date is Life Between Buildings (1987). Cities for People
is his latest book and a culmination of everything he knows about
designing people friendly streets and cities. While Gehl has mainly
worked in Scandinavia and England, he was instrumental in the
transformation of Melbourne, Australia into a more pedestrian friendly
city and over the past couple of years he completed his highest profile
project yet, the pedestrianization of Times Square in New York. Apart
from his day job, he is at present a consultant to NYC for all things
urbanism.
In
many ways this book is a handbook for how to design people and bicycle
friendly cities. Based on years of experience, especially from
Copenhagen, Gehl provides numerous examples of good and bad urban
typologies from the perspective of pedestrians. If you're looking for a
general city design manual, look elsewhere. For many it isn't difficult
to identify a street they do or don't like, but Gehl's examples show us
why. Quite plainly he brings a lot of common sense to the urban debate.
Among all the lecturing and pretentiousness of some architects like Rem
Koolhaas, Gehl offers genuine suggestions for fixing the many genuine
problems our cities face today.
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