ABSTRACT

The urban imaginary is full of ghosts. Some are fantasies about how cities were or should be; most are about how cities have been lived or imagined. Unlike human ghosts, this urban phantasmagoria is composed of material remains, the leftovers of eras that once lled the cityscape and are now barely backdrops, topographical layers of urban decay. Among these, the ruins of the twentieth century take a special place, for they are the paradoxical witnesses of a future that never happened.