BOOK REVIEW "Forma urmează situației: Orașul contemporan anticipat de situaționiști (The Form Follows the Situation: The Contemporary City Anticipated by Situationists)", Silviu Medeșan, București: Ozalid, 2021, 334 pages.

Abstract

The book “The Form Follows the Situation: The Contemporary City Anticipated by Situationists”, written in Romanian, focuses on a theoretical analysis of the contemporary city and its practices, in this case Cluj-Napoca, from the standpoint of the concepts developed by the Situationist International (SI). Silviu Medeșan aims for an alternate understanding and researching the field of urbanism, by rejecting the functionalist paradigm and switching to a see-from-below point of view (hence the title which intentionally distorts the modernist motto: Form follows function). The book is structured around three parts which develop the theory and the concepts used (as the first part), the three case studies (as the second part) and, lastly, tries to put them in dialogue and draw some conclusions. Besides these three main parts, the book also contains a photographic documentary which serves as an illustration for both the theoretical and empirical sections.