Résumé

Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman, with their firm ZUS, propose a radically new way of making a city: permanent temporality. This strategy is formed around an urban reality of values, material and people; a philosophy based on to the past and orientated towards the future. City of Permanent Temporality is a manual for urban design that links temporary interventions to long-term thinking. Taking as its examples the internationally famous Luchtsingel and Schieblock projects, for which ZUS received the Berlin Urban Intervention Award and the Rotterdam Architecture Award, this inspiring book describes the impressive process of 15 years of work in the urban laboratory that is Rotterdam. From a period of severe crisis and extreme megalomania, a unique piece of city has emerged in Rotterdam. Using unconventional strategies and radical forms of city making, ZUS has forged new links between architecture, economy, politics, and public space. City of Permanent Temporality is a journal, project exhibit and a theory for a city that is in continuous transformation, where bricks & mortar and people continue to adapt, without ever being complete. The withdrawal of governments and turbulent market forces calls for new methods of planning and design. City of Permanent Temporality sees ZUS, known for their award-winning Luchtsingel and the Schieblock, open the book on 18 years of urban activism.