The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and WomenElizabeth Wilson's elegant, provocative, and scholarly study uses fiction, essays, film, and art, as well as history and sociology, to look at some of the world's greatest cities—London, Paris, Moscow, New York, Chicago, Lusaka, and São Paulo—and presents a powerful critique of utopian planning, anti-urbanism, postmodernism, and traditional architecture. For women the city offers freedom, including sexual freedom, but also new dangers. Planners and reformers have repeatedly attempted to regulate women—and the working class and ethnic minorities—by means of grandiose, utopian plans, nearly destroying the richness of urban culture. City centers have become uninhabited business districts, the countryside suburbanized. There is danger without pleasure, consumerism without choice, safety without stimulation. What is needed is a new understanding of city life and Wilson gives us an intriguing introduction to what this might be. |
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Contents
Into the Labyrinth | 1 |
From Kitsch City to the City Sublime | 12 |
London | 26 |
Paris | 47 |
Cities of the American Dream | 65 |
Architecture and Consciousness in Central Europe | 84 |
The Lost Metropolis | 100 |
World Cities | 121 |
Beyond Good and Evil | 135 |
References and Notes | 160 |
| 170 | |
| 183 | |
Other editions - View all
The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women Elizabeth Wilson Limited preview - 1992 |
The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women Elizabeth Wilson No preview available - 1992 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women |
| Author | Elizabeth Wilson |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | University of California Press, 1992 |
| ISBN | 0520078640, 9780520078642 |
| Length | 191 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |