The Redundant City

Dynamic processes and conflicts form the core of the urban condition. Against the background of continuous change in cities, concepts and assumptions about spatial transformations have to be constantly re-examined and revised. This book explores the rich body of narrative knowledge about conflict and change provided by architecture and urbanism and confronts this knowledge with an empirically grounded situational analysis of a large housing estate. The outcome of this twofold research approach is the sensitizing concept of the Redundant City. It describes a specific form of collectively negotiated urban change.

Norbert Kling is an architect, researcher, and urbanist. He currently teaches at the Department of Architecture at the Technische Universität München, where he received a Dr.-Ing. in Architecture. His research interests are situated at the intersection of design education and practice, critical urban theory, housing estates, and qualitative analysis. He is partner with the award winning practice zectorarchitects London/Munich.