The Metropolitan Tower brings Michel Kagan's influential French research on the urban high-rise to an English-speaking readership for the first time, reframing vertical architecture not as individual expression but as a discipline of urban relationships and contextual responsibility.
About This Book
At the centre of this volume is a deceptively simple proposition: that the metropolitan tower must be understood through its context rather than its form. Michel Kagan, French architect and teacher, spent his career developing an "architecture of relationships" that placed urban fabric — not the singular building — at the heart of high-rise design. This edition, revised and expanded under the direction of Nathalie Régnier-Kagan with new research from faculty at ENSA Paris-Val de Seine, brings together Kagan's own writings with contributions from 26 international authors. The result is the most comprehensive survey of vertical architecture typology available in English, tracing the metropolitan high-rise from early modernism to the present. Essential reading for architects, urbanists, and students of urban design.
Key Features
- 320 pages of photographs, sketches, plans, critical essays, and primary writings — approximately 600 images in total
- Edited by Nathalie Régnier-Kagan; contributions from 26 distinguished international authors
- Revised, updated, and expanded content developed by faculty of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture (ENSA) Paris-Val de Seine
- Published by Park Books, 2009
What You'll Discover
- Kagan's concept of an "architecture of relationships" — a framework that prioritises urban context over the formal autonomy of the individual tower
- A typological history of the metropolitan high-rise traced from the emergence of early modernism through to contemporary practice
- How 26 international scholars and practitioners engage with and extend Kagan's ideas through their own research, producing a genuinely pluralist critical conversation
- The role of place as primary material in urban planning, and what this means for the design and evaluation of vertical architecture at city scale
About the Author
Michel Kagan (1953–2009) was a French architect and teacher whose research into the urban high-rise became a standard reference in French architectural education. This volume was edited by Nathalie Régnier-Kagan, who also directed the expanded research programme at ENSA Paris-Val de Seine that underpins this English edition.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 320
- Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783038604266
- Publisher: Park Books
- Publication Date: 2009
Perfect For: Architects and urbanists working with high-rise typologies, academics and students in architecture and urban design programmes, and critics engaged with the relationship between vertical architecture and the contemporary city.