City Squares

February 15, 2016
Marron, chairman of the board of directors of Friends of the High Line and a contributing editor for Vogue, brings together essays from 18 eminent writers that explore the culture, geopolitics, and history of world-famous city squares. New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik narrates the history of Place des Vosges in Paris, conceived as a manufacturing center by Henri IV and later home to poet and novelists Victor Hugo and the protagonist in Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret novels. Journalist Anne Applebaum traces the significance of Russia’s Red Square, a constant “place of political theater.” Moving through London, historian Andrew Roberts draws from the work and lives of William Hogarth, Charles Dickens, and Virginia Woolf. Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim provides an on-the-ground report from Tahir Square in Cairo amid the 2011 Arab Spring revolution, and journalist Richard Stengel recalls Nelson Mandela’s legendary speech at Cape Town’s Grand Parade after his release from prison. The essays and their accompanying photography interact with one another, constructing a cross-cultural narrative of diverse societal interaction and activism that culminates in journalist Gillian Tett’s forward-looking consideration of the “Virtual Square.” Photos.

March 1, 2016
Literary disquisitions on a fundamental feature of urban life: the public square. Red Square, Tiananmen Square, Tahrir Square: these are the places around which history has been made. However, writes Michael Kimmelman in this companion to chief editor Marron's City Parks, such squares are, well, "rarely square": they may be oval, round, roughly parallelogrammatic, or even free form; when they are square, such as Madrid's Plaza Mayor, sometimes not a lot of note happens on them for large stretches of time. This handsome little book belongs on urban-studies bookshelves for many reasons, foremost of them the photographs. Together, the dozens of images make a grand testimonial to how people live their lives in public spaces, some of which have been public spaces for thousands of years, others of which are relatively new, the creation of urban planners or accidents of history. In this regard, British writer and diplomat Rory Stewart writes meaningfully of a forlorn space in Kabul, "layered like a mille-feuille cake with bright blue bags and sprinkled with the feces of men and goats," unlikely to become the tourist destination that the Place des Vosges of Paris has recently transformed into, a place, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik memorably notes, in which "to buy an overpriced lunch in cafes filled with waiters who speak some weary bad-tempered English or German." Some of the authors, such as Elif Shafak, who writes of Istanbul, and Alma Guillermoprieto, who portrays the Zocalo of Mexico City, should be better known to American readers; others, such as Gopnik and Zadie Smith, are a little overexposed, and Smith's essay in particular seems tossed-off. Most of the contributions, however, are thoughtful and sometimes even surprising, and if they don't always make you want to visit the places in question--Kabul comes to mind--they lend an appreciation for the depth of history surrounding them. They're not all hits, but this is a worthy celebration of the "one essential urban space."

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2016

Marron (City Parks) describes the city square as the "essential urban place," and in this book gathers 15 new essays by eminent writers, exploring famous squares around the world, as well as the virtual square, social media, in relation to their significance in culture, geopolitics, and history. The essayists define urban squares as places where people gather, rather than simply pass through on the way to somewhere else. Urban squares are not always square, were not necessarily planned, and do not without question persist. Forgotten squares are often revived thanks to reurbanization. When people move into a city, they seek out neighborhood meeting spaces, desiring to be "in the middle of things." The squares described range from small community areas (Place de Vosges, Paris; residential squares in London) to large market squares (Djemaa El-Fnaa, Marrakech) and vast locales that define nations (Red Square, Tiananmen Square). The final essay discusses social media "squares"--Facebook, Instagram, Twitter--and their ongoing evolution. Each essay is accompanied by multiple photographs. VERDICT Recommended for those with an interest in how urban spaces intersect with culture, history, and politics, and for travelers seeking a deeper understanding of these famous locations.--Rachel Owens, Daytona State Coll. Lib., FL

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.