The Language of Cities review: Urban life explained

The Language of Cities

Author: Deyan Sudjic

ISBN-13: 978-0-241-18804-0

Publisher: Allen Lane

Guideline Price: £25

As you might expect, Deyan Sudjic, the director of the Design Museum in London, has a distinctly cosmopolitan and design-led approach in his exploration of quite what a city is, how it comes to be and how it is changed.

The Language of Cities, a primer on the parameters of urban living and the structures that shape them, is meandering when compared to his earlier The Language of Things, where he is no doubt closer to his subject and thus on firmer ground – but perhaps that is just it.

Impermanence

After all, while so many of the objects that clutter our world often regrettably last beyond their usefulness, Sudjic here zeroes in on the impermanence of the likes of London, Shanghai, Paris or Dubai as we know them.

Touching on the historical formation of cities and the economic, financial and political forces at work at key points in their development, The Language of Cities is thought-provoking in these freewheeling times, as a degraded sense of urban planning further destabilises our vision of what a city could and should be.