Rooftop Architecture

The introductory essay, however, is both structured and meaningful in content, as well as conveying a clear message: ‘building on the roof’ is seen as a great opportunity in this book. It is always evaluated with an eye on the aims the authors define as open to realization for the European city: a good social and functional mix, environment-friendly compactness and the possibility of ‘spontaneous interaction’ – whatever the reader might imagine this to be. So in places the text comes close to being dogmatic – for example when it suggests that mere topping up (topic: ‘more of the same’) is less worthwhile than genuine new rooftop construction. According to the authors, the latter could always add at least one new function or other to the existing city. But they scarcely ask whether it does so in reality.

Even so, Rooftop Architecture is an attempt that deserves to be taken seriously to show the potential that the roofs of our cities offer for new construction. Admittedly the idea is not entirely new: in their research into ideas for ‘city topping up’ the authors come across El Lissitzky’s Cloud Iron, the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna (why actually?), penthouses in Manhattan and many other less familiar examples, some even as a result of anonymous owners’ urge to make things. And the legal and constructional aspects of topping up and rooftop construction are not left out either. This still does not make the book a practical manual, but that is not what the authors were trying to write anyway. Their stated aim was to draw attention to a kind of architecture that is already practised intensively in some places – in Rotterdam and Vienna, for example – but is still a long way from making a real breakthrough. But one thing they have done successfully: Rooftop Architecture contains precisely the right mixture of pragmatic and utopian but always unique projects, and also subtle texts that are short enough to be easy to enjoy – and all this makes the reader want to keep picking the book up again.