Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Post Civil Society

Ever since Michel Foucault´s influential 1967 essay Of Other Space, urban designers, architects and theorists have been debating his concept of "heterotopia". Heterotopia sounds like a complex term, but is actually a rich concept for urban design: it describes a space that is on the margins of ordered or civil society, or that possesses multiple, fragmented or even incompatible meanings. Architects and design practitioners from the 1960s onwards have employed Foucault´s theories to underpin various avant-garde projects, and today academics and graduates have an abiding interest in the connections that Foucault and his generation created between discourse and practice.Urban Theory and Foucault´sHeterotopia, which has developed under the guidance of Hilde Heynen (author of Architecture and Modernity), offers new explorations of these connections. The editors have brought together a contributing team of both experienced and up-and-coming urban designers and architectural theorists, making it an excellent resource at the cutting-edge of urban design theory.