{"product_id":"megastructure-urban-futures-of-the-recent-past-9781580935401","title":"Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past","description":"\u003cb\u003eA long-sought reprint of this classic of architectural history and criticism, surveying a movement that would inspire architects, fantasists, and filmmakers alike.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is an architectural concept as alluring as it is elusive, as futuristic as it is primordial. Megastructure is what it sounds like: a vastly scaled edifice that can contain potentially countless uses, contexts, and adaptations. Theorized and briefly experimented with in built form in the 1960s, megastructures almost as quickly went out of fashion in the profession. But Reyner Banham's 1976 book compiled the origin stories and ongoing mythos of this visionary movement, seeking to chart its lively rise, rapid fall, and ongoing meaning.\u003cbr\u003eNow back in print after decades and with original editions fetching well over $100 on the secondary market, \u003ci\u003eMegastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past\u003c\/i\u003e is part of the recent surge in attention to this quixotic form, of which some examples were built but to this day remains--decades after its codification--more of a poetic idea than a real architectural type.\u003cbr\u003eBanham, among the most gifted and incisive architectural critics and historians of his time, sought connections between theoretical origins in Le Corbusier's more starry-eyed drawings to the flurry of theories by the Japanese Metabolist architects, to less intentional examples in military architecture, industry, infrastructure, and the emerging instances in pop culture and art. Had he written the book a few years later he would find an abundance of examples in speculative art and science fiction cinema, mediums where it continues to provoke wonder to this day.\u003cbr\u003eA long-sought study by an author who combined imagination, wit, and pioneering scholarship, the republication of \u003ci\u003eMegastructure\u003c\/i\u003e is an opportunity for scholars and laypeople alike to return to the origins of this fantastic urban idea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Monacelli Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/16\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781580935401\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 232\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 2.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 10.20h x 8.80w x 0.90d","brand":"Reyner Banham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":36660514324636,"sku":"9781580935401","price":42.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_95c61351-877b-428d-8404-2b8b22ba6919.jpg?v=1603896903","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/megastructure-urban-futures-of-the-recent-past-9781580935401","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}