The Kinetic City and Other Essays
by Rahul Mehrotra
ArchiTangle, August 2021

Hardcover | 6 x 9 inches | 352 pages | 300 illustrations | English | ISBN: 9783966800136 | ?45

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:
This book presents Rahul Mehrotra?s writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India. This work has given rise to a new conceptualization of the city. Mehrotra calls it the Kinetic City, which is the counterpoint to the Static City, as familiar to most of us from conventional city maps. He argues that the city should instead be perceived, read, and mapped in terms of patterns of occupation and associative values attributed to space. The framework is established in this publication by Rahul Mehrotra?s anchor essay, which draws out its potential to ?allow a better understanding of the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society.? The emerging urban Indian condition, of which the Kinetic City is symbolic, is examined in this publication through a selection of writings curated by Mehrotra, which led to and then subsequently built on this framework. The theory is reinforced by different perspectives that Rahul Mehrotra brings to bear on discourse, and on the profession of architects and urban designers, thanks to his career as an architect, urban designer, conservationist, educator, and advocate for the city. From essays such as ?Evolution, Involution and the Cit...