Design of Cities.

BACON, Edmund N.

Item Number: 36091

New York: The Viking Press, 1967.

First edition of this major contemporary work on urban design. Quarto, original cloth. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To the McCloskey’s Best Wishes Edmund N. Bacon.” The recipients were Robert and Margaret McCloskey. Robert was the famed author of the children’s classic Make Way For Ducklings. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket.

In a brilliant synthesis of words and pictures, Edmund N. Bacon relates historical examples to modern principles of urban planning. He vividly demonstrates how the work of great architects and planners of the past can influence subsequent development and be continued by later generations. By illuminating the historical background of urban design, Bacon also shows us the fundamental forces and considerations that determine the form of a great city. Perhaps the most significant of these are simultaneous movement systems—the paths of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, public and private transportation—that serve as the dominant organizing force, and Bacon looks at movement systems in cities such as London, Rome, and New York. "Edmund Bacon had greater impact on the planning and development of his hometown [Philadelphia] than any individual except Robert Moses in New York and Daniel Burnham in Chicago. Like Burnham, he had created a noble, logical diagram that had the power to stir the blood" (Alexander Garvin).