Skateboarding,Space and the City by Iain Borden
Skateboarding Space and the City Architecture and the Body by Iain Borden
Iain Borden effectively tells the history of the rise of skateboarding, board and boardpark history and the evolution of skateboarding itself. Lefebvre’s The Production of Space is the main jumping off point for this book but necessarily reinterpreted through the attitude of skateboarders to the city. Actually its better than that because it really well explains how space is a personal production by necessity in a city whether actively engaged in or not.
The effective telling of skateboarding subculture also gives this book the edge and authority to challenge the politics of city planning at the most basic level. I like it particularly because its theory rooted in practice, not just a post-modern abstract philosophical theory bootstrapped onto architectural thought like so many post-modern theories over the last 30 years. Its not often that this tightrope between theory and reality is so deftly navigated in Architectural discourses and the result is a book that has something to say to everyone.
I think currently (2024-02-03) out of print. There is a new perhapss more accessable version Skateboarding and the City: A Complete History by Iain Borden probably worth chasing up.