Edwin Heathcote

Born from a short series Heathcote wrote for The Financial Times, where he is the longtime architecture and design critic, On the Street is a delightful and probing tour through the many elements that comprise urban streetscapes. Though generally called street furniture, the elements in the book are titled with verbs rather than nouns, proper or otherwise. So, instead of benches, we find "sitting"; subway canopies are "commuting"; even streetlights are "streetlighting." This shift to verbs puts the focus on actions, clearly, but also relaxes Heathcote's writing so it focuses on the meaning of street furniture rather than (strictly) their design. His words, which blend history, criticism, and first-hand accounts (the last make the book highly London-centric), are accompanied by photographs that veer from the documentary and the poetic to, as in the cover, the absurd and the humorous.… (mer)