Includes bibliographical references and index

Chapter 1. The nineteenth-century port city on its way to the twenty-first century -- 1. The identity of the port city: The emergence of 'the cultural factor' -- 2. The modernity of the port city: Shaping the tension of public space -- 3. On to the twenty-first century: Disappearance or renewal of public space? -- 4. Redefining the public domain -- Chapter 2. The English port city: London and the wonder of docklands -- 1. Between individual dwelling and regional plan -- 2. The docks as a microcosm of the British empire -- 3. The docks as divisive element in regional planning -- 4. The new course -- 5. Balance: From west end to east end -- Chapter 3. The Mediterranean port city: Barcelona and the other modern tradition -- 1. The premodern port city: The orientation of the city toward the sea -- 2. Modernity in the Mediterranean region: Barcelona as a European city on the water -- 3. The uncompleted project of modernism: Spatial form or building form? -- 4. Barcelona's 'urbanismo': Recapturing public space -- 5. Balance: The ongoing spatial organization of the city -- Chapter 4. The North American port city: New York, a boundless urban landscape -- 1. The 'pure' modernity of the American city: Between cultural and economic principles -- 2. The modernity of the port city: The port area, from neutral to marginal zone -- 3. Modernism on the waterfront: The city merges with the landscape -- 4. After modernism: Cities are fun : Revaluation of the complexity of the nineteenth-century city -- 5. Balance: Fragmentation or coherence -- Chapter 5. The northwestern European port city: Rotterdam and the dynamic of the delta -- 1. City, port, and dikes -- 2. The modern transit port: The search for a new symbiosis of port and city -- 3. Modernism in the port city: A dualistic relationship between city and port -- 4. After modernism: The search for new fundamentals of design -- 5. Balance: Restless relations between city and river -- Chapter 6. Urbanizing infrastructure: An urban design project