In Concrete Reveries, acclaimed philosopher and cultural critic Mark Kingwell offers a thoughtful answer to Socrates' injunction about the life worth living, using the urban experience to illustrate the dynamic between concreteness and abstraction that operates within us.Witty and authoritative, the book is an exhilarating journey through unexpected terrain.

"Kingwell is an expert at designing new tools for looking at the familiar in remarkable new ways. This is one of those pause-and-reflect reads you only get once a year."
—Douglas Coupland

Concrete Reveries is a stimulating oscillation between philosophical and architectural constructs, abstract theory and popular culture, global cities and daily urban living. A truly integrative thinker, Kingwell makes extraordinary connections, crossing boundaries and thresholds. I love the sections on walking in New York and Shanghai, and his bibliographic essay extends the conversation. Concrete proof of the expansive imagination and mind of Mark Kingwell.
—Bruce Kuwabara, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects