Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger

Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger

An exhilarating, splendidly illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic.

From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a saloon in the open air), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society: the earliest ballparks evoked the Victorian age in their accommodations--bleachers for the riffraff, grandstands for the middle-class; the concrete donuts of the 1950s and '60s made plain television's grip on the public's attention; and more recent ballparks, like Baltimore's Camden Yards, signal a new way forward for stadium design and for baseball's role in urban development. Throughout, Goldberger shows us the way in which baseball's history is concurrent with our cultural history: the rise of urban parks and public transportation; the development of new building materials and engineering and design skills. And how the site details and the requirements of the game--the diamond, the outfields, the walls, the grandstands--shaped our most beloved ballparks.

A fascinating, exuberant ode to the Edens at the heart of our cities--where dreams are as limitless as the outfields.

Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, worked at The New Yorker for fifteen years as the architecture critic, and began his career at The New York Times, when he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism for his architecture writing. He is the author of numerous publications, including Why Architecture Matters, Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, and Up From Zero, among others. He teaches at The New School and gives talks on architecture, design, historic preservation, and cities all throughout the country. Susan Solomon, his wife, and he live in New York City.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780307701541
ISBN 10	0307701549
Title	Baseball in the American City
Author	Paul Goldberger
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Year published	2019-05-14
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.