Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City Book

A collection of short essays, mostly written as monthly columns for the RIBA Journal, Mitchell here seems to emulate the prose of the late Stephen Jay Gould. His weaving of popular culture and current political references to enhance (or construct) certain observations about architectural/urbanist culture is, ultimately, less convincing than much of Gould's evolutionary-science-for-the-lay-person contributions to Nature magazine (though, as one with a propensity to listen to rap music, I was surprised to learn of the origin of the now ubiquitous term "bling" from a Mitchell essay about Frank Gehry, of all places). Admittedly, this seeming lack of a comprehensive fusing is likely due to the 1000 word limits imposed by the RIBA format. Otherwise, I found this to be an enjoyable book as there were some interesting insights - and not all related to his trilogy of computer-nerd-urbanism books (also enjoyable reads, by the way). Though, perhaps the most memorable statement is his interpretation of the cast of Desperate Housewives as including a "Latin Hot-Tomato and California Camp-Slut Blond"... whatever that means...