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Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City
An exploration of urbanism, personal identity, and how the space we live in shapes us
According to philosopher and cultural critic Mark Kingwell, the transnational global city—New York and Shanghai—is the most significant machine our species has ever produced. And yet, he says, we fail again and again to understand it. How do cities shape us, and how do we shape them? That is the subject of Concrete Reveries, which investigates how we occupy city space and why place is so important to who we are.
Kingwell explores the sights, smells, and forms of the city, reflecting on how they mold our notions of identity, the limits of social and political engagement, and our moral obligations as citizens. He offers a critique of the monumental architectural supermodernism in which buildings are valued more for their exteriors than for what is inside, as well as some lively writing on the significance of threshold structures like doorways, lobbies, and porches and the kinds of emotional attachments we form to ballparks, carnival grounds, and gardens. In the process, he gives us a whole new set of models and metaphors for thinking about the city.
With a spectacular interior design and more than seventy-five photos, Concrete Reveries will appeal to fans of Jane Jacobs, Witold Rybczynski, and Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness.
According to philosopher and cultural critic Mark Kingwell, the transnational global city—New York and Shanghai—is the most significant machine our species has ever produced. And yet, he says, we fail again and again to understand it. How do cities shape us, and how do we shape them? That is the subject of Concrete Reveries, which investigates how we occupy city space and why place is so important to who we are.
Kingwell explores the sights, smells, and forms of the city, reflecting on how they mold our notions of identity, the limits of social and political engagement, and our moral obligations as citizens. He offers a critique of the monumental architectural supermodernism in which buildings are valued more for their exteriors than for what is inside, as well as some lively writing on the significance of threshold structures like doorways, lobbies, and porches and the kinds of emotional attachments we form to ballparks, carnival grounds, and gardens. In the process, he gives us a whole new set of models and metaphors for thinking about the city.
With a spectacular interior design and more than seventy-five photos, Concrete Reveries will appeal to fans of Jane Jacobs, Witold Rybczynski, and Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
Mark Kingwell
62 books57 followersMark Gerald Kingwell B.A, M.Litt, M.Phil, PhD, D.F.A. (born March 1, 1963) is a Canadian philosopher who is currently professor of philosophy and associate chair at the University of Toronto's Department of Philosophy. Kingwell is a fellow of Trinity College and a Senior Fellow of Massey College. He specialises in theories of politics and culture.
Kingwell has published twelve different books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. In 2000 Kingwell received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for contributions to theory and criticism. He has held visiting posts at various institutions including: Cambridge University, University of California at Berkeley, and City University of New York where he held the title of Weissman Distinguished Professor of Humanities.
He studied at the University of Toronto, editing The Varsity through 1983 to 1984 and the University of Toronto Review from 84-85. He received his BA degree from the University of St. Michael's College with High Distinction in 1985, his MLitt degree from Edinburgh University in 1987, and both his M.Phil and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1989 and 1991 respectively. He was married to Gail Donaldson in 1988. The marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
Kingwell is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, the literary quarterly Descant, the political monthly This Magazine and the Globe and Mail books section. He was also a drinks columnist for the men's magazine Toro. He was formerly a columnist for the National Post, and a contributing editor of Saturday Night. He frequently appears on television and radio, often on the CBC, and is well known for his appearance in the documentary film The Corporation. He has delivered, among others, the George Grant, Harold Innis, Marx Wartofsky and Larkin-Stuart memorial lectures.
Kingwell’s work has been translated into ten languages, and he lectures to academic and popular audiences around the world. From 2001 to 2004, he was chair of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. His work on philosophy, art, and architecture has appeared in many leading academic journals and magazines, including The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Forum, Ethics, Political Theory, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Utne Reader, Adbusters, the Walrus, Harvard Design Magazine,Canadian Art, Azure, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post.
Kingwell is one of two University of Toronto professors teaching a first year philosophy course entitled Introduction to Philosophy. Kingwell teaches his class in Victoria College's Isabel Bader Theatre, with a class size of around 700 students. He has also been part of the University of Trinity College's TrinityOne program, for which he taught a seminar class entitled Ethics and the Creative Imagination.
He describes himself as a social democrat and a "recovering Catholic". According to the Canadian Who's Who 2006, he also enjoys running, baseball, basketball, jazz, films and pop music. He has two brothers: a younger brother named Sean Kingwell and an older brother named Steven Kingwell.
Kingwell has published twelve different books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. In 2000 Kingwell received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for contributions to theory and criticism. He has held visiting posts at various institutions including: Cambridge University, University of California at Berkeley, and City University of New York where he held the title of Weissman Distinguished Professor of Humanities.
He studied at the University of Toronto, editing The Varsity through 1983 to 1984 and the University of Toronto Review from 84-85. He received his BA degree from the University of St. Michael's College with High Distinction in 1985, his MLitt degree from Edinburgh University in 1987, and both his M.Phil and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1989 and 1991 respectively. He was married to Gail Donaldson in 1988. The marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
Kingwell is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, the literary quarterly Descant, the political monthly This Magazine and the Globe and Mail books section. He was also a drinks columnist for the men's magazine Toro. He was formerly a columnist for the National Post, and a contributing editor of Saturday Night. He frequently appears on television and radio, often on the CBC, and is well known for his appearance in the documentary film The Corporation. He has delivered, among others, the George Grant, Harold Innis, Marx Wartofsky and Larkin-Stuart memorial lectures.
Kingwell’s work has been translated into ten languages, and he lectures to academic and popular audiences around the world. From 2001 to 2004, he was chair of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. His work on philosophy, art, and architecture has appeared in many leading academic journals and magazines, including The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Forum, Ethics, Political Theory, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Utne Reader, Adbusters, the Walrus, Harvard Design Magazine,Canadian Art, Azure, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post.
Kingwell is one of two University of Toronto professors teaching a first year philosophy course entitled Introduction to Philosophy. Kingwell teaches his class in Victoria College's Isabel Bader Theatre, with a class size of around 700 students. He has also been part of the University of Trinity College's TrinityOne program, for which he taught a seminar class entitled Ethics and the Creative Imagination.
He describes himself as a social democrat and a "recovering Catholic". According to the Canadian Who's Who 2006, he also enjoys running, baseball, basketball, jazz, films and pop music. He has two brothers: a younger brother named Sean Kingwell and an older brother named Steven Kingwell.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 5, 2015
I was inspired to read Concrete Reveries after seeing Mark Kingwell interviewed on TVO’s The Agenda. He talked about concepts that I am interested in knowing more about –how individuals experience space in the build environment or urban setting. Kingwell approaches these concepts from a philosophical level. In the introduction, he writes that unless you have a learned background in philosophy you will have difficulty with some of the concepts. He’s not exaggerating. I have never studied philosophy, and things like “I think therefore I am, if a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear?” just don’t interest me—at all. Yawn.
I decided to persevere and I am glad I did. While there are sections where I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about (I admit to some skimming…which I NEVER do), the more practical chapters on New York and Shanghai were fascinating, and the esoteric philosophical concepts where I was just barely able to hang onto his thought narrative whet my appetite.
Things that did resonate with me:
- The beauty of concrete
- Places vs. spaces
- The urban grid
- Monumental conceptual architecture
- Cult of celebrity architect
- The third realm of beauty
- Architecture as the embodiment of political consciousness and enabler of vibrant citizenship
- Public space vs. public sphere
- The idea of thresholds (the movement between inside and outside, not just buildings, but cities, our bodies and yes, sex makes an appearance in this section)
- Desire and consumption (as a way to achieve status and social differentiation)
- Junkspaces and feral cities
After reading his book, it feels like he left no topic uncovered (there was even a section on torture, in relation to pain as a meaning-structure and necessary for self-consciousness). He talked a lot about “embodied consciousness” and I am still not perfectly clear on what this means and how it links to the consciousness of a city. I admit it – the problem is me, not the writer.
However, I am sure there is a philosophical debate making a book “accessible”, say for example like the books by Witold Rybczynski. (There are novelists who are pretty “inaccessible” too – Martin Amis comes to mind.) In fact Kingwell argues that one of the main threats to our cities is that we don't understand them. I suggest that if his book was more accessible, it would be better at making us understand.
Some of this may just be Kingwell’s style – I haven’t read any of this other books. Near the beginning of the book, for example, Kingwell spends 4 pages explaining the philosophical debate about writing in the second person. Personally, I think it would be hard to have the mind of a philosopher—the tendency to look at everything with the “why” frame of mind, must be exhausting.
I read mostly novels and the odd business book. I might not invest the time in reading another of Kingwell’s books – he is writing for an audience that is not me. Regardless, Concrete Reveries made me think and it certainly introduced me to some great new words: iatrogenic, mythopoeic, synodically, agglutinative, invidious, reification, deracinated, simulacral, heterotopia...the list continues.
I decided to persevere and I am glad I did. While there are sections where I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about (I admit to some skimming…which I NEVER do), the more practical chapters on New York and Shanghai were fascinating, and the esoteric philosophical concepts where I was just barely able to hang onto his thought narrative whet my appetite.
Things that did resonate with me:
- The beauty of concrete
- Places vs. spaces
- The urban grid
- Monumental conceptual architecture
- Cult of celebrity architect
- The third realm of beauty
- Architecture as the embodiment of political consciousness and enabler of vibrant citizenship
- Public space vs. public sphere
- The idea of thresholds (the movement between inside and outside, not just buildings, but cities, our bodies and yes, sex makes an appearance in this section)
- Desire and consumption (as a way to achieve status and social differentiation)
- Junkspaces and feral cities
After reading his book, it feels like he left no topic uncovered (there was even a section on torture, in relation to pain as a meaning-structure and necessary for self-consciousness). He talked a lot about “embodied consciousness” and I am still not perfectly clear on what this means and how it links to the consciousness of a city. I admit it – the problem is me, not the writer.
However, I am sure there is a philosophical debate making a book “accessible”, say for example like the books by Witold Rybczynski. (There are novelists who are pretty “inaccessible” too – Martin Amis comes to mind.) In fact Kingwell argues that one of the main threats to our cities is that we don't understand them. I suggest that if his book was more accessible, it would be better at making us understand.
Some of this may just be Kingwell’s style – I haven’t read any of this other books. Near the beginning of the book, for example, Kingwell spends 4 pages explaining the philosophical debate about writing in the second person. Personally, I think it would be hard to have the mind of a philosopher—the tendency to look at everything with the “why” frame of mind, must be exhausting.
I read mostly novels and the odd business book. I might not invest the time in reading another of Kingwell’s books – he is writing for an audience that is not me. Regardless, Concrete Reveries made me think and it certainly introduced me to some great new words: iatrogenic, mythopoeic, synodically, agglutinative, invidious, reification, deracinated, simulacral, heterotopia...the list continues.
January 1, 2009
Maybe I expected too much of Concrete Reveries. It has several interesting passages such as, ways of walking in New York City and the hyperthyroid architecture of Shanghai. Kingwell also offers good descriptions of how human consciousness is necessarily embodied, not purely abstract and how our focus on private consumption of goods affects urban public spaces. I liked the direction the author was going, but I didn't feel like I'd gone anywhere new.
February 14, 2025
This is one of the most insightful books I've read
May 29, 2016
It's the kind of book that makes me want to get back into the study of philosophy. Kingwell covers all sorts of territory that is relevant to contemporary existence, always circling back to notions of the city and what it means to live in one. Non-philosophy types will prefer the two chapters providing portraits of cities (New York and Shanghai), but there are just so many cool ideas in here. I also really appreciate that Kingwell took the time to write a "Bibliographic Essay" rather than just providing a list of sources, making it much easier to trace the ideas in source materials. Lastly, the book was designed to be quite beautiful, which makes sure the reader doesn't get too tired.
September 5, 2011
It is hard to know what to make of this exactly. I am slowly coming around to a more open expression of urban cultural theory. Kingwell certainly has alot to say on the matter and I found it clearly explicated but it is hard to say in any shorter way what exactly was on offer. How would one summarize Whitman or Heidegger? Perhaps as I accumulate more I will be able to differentiate and clarify a bit.
June 7, 2009
Too abstract for me.
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November 19, 2008As seen on Writers Read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews