ABSTRACT
The chapters in this book have provided a series of dialogues on the role of different ‘maps’ to enable us to explain a range of revelatory tools which expose unseen or latent spatial conditions and characteristics alongside urban narratives. These maps vis-à-vis (re)interpretations in and of the city, illustrate specific essences and nuances of space and place whether experiential or thematic. Furthermore, whilst the initial taxonomy of such entities afforded greater clarity in their description and values, the interrelationship and cross-fertilization is explicit in the context of the urban critique offered here, acknowledging the increasing complexity of cities in physical, social and cultural terms. The thematic lenses through which we examine architecture serve to reveal more about the contemporary city than the analysis of architecture itself and whilst built examples can be proffered as illustrations of the exposed conditions, it is the very nature of these as examples that serves to demonstrate the production of architecture as inherently reactive, whereas once it may be have been considered as proactive.
