Suburbs of History: Modernist Visions of the Urban Periphery by Steven Logan is part of the Global Suburbanisms series, edited by Roger Keil of York University, whose aim is to “systematically take stock of worldwide developments in suburbanization and suburbanisms today” (ii). Logan's is the eighth book in this edition since 2015 and the first authored book grounded, in a broad sense, on long-term research in the field of Communication and Culture and Urban Study. The layered nature of the study is strongly based in a profound understanding of the origin and characteristics of the artistic, architectural, and urban culture of western civilization's modernism. More narrowly, this synthetic work presents a comprehensive comparative examination of the production of suburban space within capitalist and socialist systems in the post-war period. Logan pays particular attention to the meaning of suburban space, its emergence, urban models, actors in the planning process, as well as the characteristics of the physical expression of suburban space on the opposite sides of typological differences. The emergence and development of suburban space in the socialist/post-socialist and capitalist political, economic, and technological environments is told through case studies of the suburbs of Prague, Jižní Město (South City), and the North York suburb of Toronto, Willowdale. Logan brings out the most important actors and their ideas already in the first pages of the book, establishing the conceptual relations between suburbs in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic today) and Canada through two 1967 events: the great conference dedicated to “metropolitan problems,” held in North York, Toronto, and the International and Universal Exposition, held in Montreal. Furthermore, the book develops a dialogue between concepts and authors, as well as various historical trends, gradually revealing the main goal: to find common ground in the search for the new visions of suburban but also urban space, or to find common ground in the search for living (sub)urban environment.
Suburbs of History is structured in seven parts, comprising a preface, six chapters, and a conclusion. The theoretical inquiry into ideas at the root of meaning and emergence above all of modernist urbanism, accompanied by empirical studies of specific suburbs in Czechoslovakia and Canada in the 1960s, gradually provide answers to questions what is suburban space, suburbia in general, and what is the difference between suburbs and life in them in the socialist and capitalist environment. The question is what are the characteristics of urban planning in the socialist and capitalist system? Do the different economic and production bases in each context result in different outcomes in the production of space? The thorough bibliography comprises 279 references of both original sources and secondary literature, and along with the notes displays the breadth of intellectual reach at the foundation of the book, which together with excellent illustrations forms a functional, coherent, and inspiring book.
One of the original contributions of this work is the linking and entwining of topics that belong to somewhat disparate discourses: modernist urbanism as the general heritage of the twentieth century, but also those of urban planning in different periods of socialism as well as capitalism. Logan delicately inquires into the transgressions of modernist urbanism in both sets of contexts, across their respective temporal, geographic, spatial, conceptual, and value levels. He meticulously examines the theoretical and historical characteristics of modernist urbanism; the relations among both the main and lateral transformation tendencies in urban paradigms in both the socialist and capitalist environment. The result is an unequivocal unsustainability of an ultimate rigid distinction; rather, Logan indicates the similarities in the intellectual origins and approaches within the field. The book follows a few very interesting lateral tendencies, such as: recalling the essential characteristics of the Garden City Concept, a concise history of CIAM (The Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne, or International Congresses of Modern Architecture), the significance of the Athens Charter for contemporary cities, and still the actual relevance of the question of the Heart of the city, within the same corpus of ideas. The book also looks at the importance of a thorough understanding of a prominent figure of the 1920s avant-garde, Karel Teige, and the still crucial problem of the social role of architecture and architects. Most importantly, this book provokes many more questions and possible directions for future research in the field.
