Choice Review

Gehl teaches urban design at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen, where the research for his recently translated book, first published in 1971, was carried out in collaboration with US, Canadian, and Australian universities. The Royal Academy has a long and successful tradition of sending its students on far-flung extended study tours. As a whole, US architects and their schools do not share the characteristically Danish humanistic approach to community planning and design advocated by Gehl. Although it does not deal with the more complex problems of urban design for our oversized crowded city centers, the book is a good antidote to US preoccupation with the tight economics of development and with the abstract forms of an architecture to be primarily experienced as art. The informal photographs capture the conditions observed in streets and squares of three continents and conclusions are drawn in a clear text directed at professionals and general readers alike.-P.J. Mitarachi, Boston Architectural Center