preface

INTRODUCTION (FULL CHAPTER TEXT IS ONLINE)

Chapter 1: Worldviews and the city

The Roman Empire
The Classical Greek Polis
Pharaonic Egypt
The Christian City of God
Renaissance and baroque urbatecture

Chapter 2: Science and worldviews

The Organic Worldview
The Scientific Revolution
The Cartesian Schism
Newton’s Mechanism
Entropy versus Evolution
Einstein’s revolution

Chapter 3: Quantum theory: an introduction to basics

Searching for the light
Classroom physics 101: the two hole experiment
The wave-particle duality: the Principle of Complementarity or the both/and logic
A jumping universe: random leaps beyond space and time
The Uncertainty Principle: does God play dice?
The Copenhagen Interpretation: WYSIWYLF
Non-locality and relational holism: the universe is one
Multidimensional quantum field theory: malleable energy patterns
The vibrant vacuum: something out of nothing

Interlude: Mathematical Chaos and Urban Complexity

Chapter 4: The Quantum worldview

Dynamic Contextualism
Relational Holism
Meaning and Spirit
Tolerance and Pluralism
Technology and Ecology

Interlude: Feng Shui or the Tao of the City

Chapter 5: 20th century cities

Industrialization and modernist urbanism: the mechanical worldview takes physical form
Postmodernism or Relativity misinterpreted

Interlude: cities and worldviews and cinema

Chapter 6: Urban design and the quantum worldview

First Generation
Pictures
Re-definitions
The role of Urban design
the urban designer versus Urban Design: a new attitude
Information storage
Timekeeping
Model or Metaphor?
The Quantum hyper-metaphor

Chapter 7: A quantum look to the postgraduate education and practice of urbanism

Renaissance Genius, Modern Hero and Quantum Acrobats
Probabilism and Scenario-buffered design

Chapter 8: Quantum analysis of the urban realm

Open systems
Duality not dualism
Interference in malleable propensity fields
The human user: vessel for non-locality
The society-space-time quantum continuum
The creative role of the user’s mind: the observer-observed dialogue
Information fields and knowledge media
Meaning beyond function: image, identity, and memory of place

Chapter 9: Implications for built form

In search of an axiom for the definition of ‘good urban space’
Oscillating construction blocks: life in quantum lego-land
Composition rules
Time and the user as an observer-designer
The public-private continuum: territoriality, admissibility and the human gaze
Landscape-based design exemplifies the society-space-time unity
Built form as memory storage media or the city as memorial
Awareness before construction
Surfaces and textures as wave sources and relays
Initial states in new large scale development
Transition phases: colonizing the vacuum
Ruins as primary wave sources and other development seeds
Landmarks and events: local wave disturbance sources
Event horizons: an edge is not a border
The city and its region: a self-organizing quantum system of neighborhoods and quarters

Transition

bibliography

index