The Periphery, The

The peripheral urban condition has long been understood as the demarcation of the city limit where built form confronts unbuilt territory and where the artificial confronts the natural.

It has traditionally implied a zone of limited political intent where fragmented infrastructure overlaps dispersed urban form and where the historical, the natural and the expectant co-exist. As city sprawl meets city sprawl the periphery has recently caught the attention of the media.

AD explores these seductive marginal qualities, and present a selection of essays from leading architects, such as Carsten Juel-Christiansen, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Steven Holl and theorists, such as Joel Garreau, Paul Virillo and many others from Europe and North America, who are engaged in this discourse that has been debated and investigated since the 50s and 60s. A topic that is now seen as a source for contemporary metropolitan solutions, new emphasis has been given to re-address the investigations of previous decades and now a quest for ambitious new forms of urbanity and for realising new strategies for the city of the 21st century has begun.