Böcker av Richard J. Williams

In the demonology of the contemporary city, is there anything more toxic than the expressway? Dividing neighbourhoods, depressing land values, concentrating atmospheric pollutants, the mammoth infrastructure of the expressway is now increasingly crumbling into the ground. How did we build the expressway world in the first place? And what are we going to do now with it now? This eye-opening book explores these questions partly through the great expressway abolitions of recent years, such as Boston's Central Artery (buried and covered by a park) and Seoul's Cheonggyecheon (replaced with an artificial river). But the book also uncovers the hidden stories of expressways that have become weird attractions in their own right, from London's Westway to São Paulo's Minhocão, celebrated in art and literature. Above all, the book proposes, counterintuitively, that we find ways to live with the expressway world and to adapt it to a different future, inspired by the many examples where people have already reinvented this challenging legacy on their own terms. Engaging with case studies across the world and recent thinking in the environmental humanities and architectural theory, this is a thought-provoking invitation to reconsider the most maligned structures of the recent urban past.

The Culture Factory: Architecture and the Contemporary Art Museum examines museum design using international examples from Western Europe, China, Brazil and the USA. Written accessibly, it argues that the development of the art museum since the mid-1970s has involved the deliberate blurring of boundaries between different categories of art.

A unique and provocative history of the development of the idea of the city in recent years. Key public spaces and buildings in England, Europe and the USA are discussed in relation to their socio-political context.

Noise damage to hearing health is a health risk, which is associated with both civilian and military occupations as well as certain leisure activities. This title seeks to address points relevant to knowledge of the subject, and is useful to members of the many disciplines that have an interest in this subject.