A group organised by the University of Edinburgh, led by Mark Dorrian, and CNRS Paris, led by Frédéric Pousin is exploring the history and the cultural meanings of the aerial view. It aims to investigate how the aerial view can be defined, how images are produced, how ‘elevated’ one has to be in order to produce or experience an aerial view, and how images are used and consumed. Jointly funded by the British Academy and CNRS, a numberof meetings will be held over the next two years. The following account reports on the first meeting held in Edinburgh on 3 February 2007.

Contemporary criticism in architecture frequently ignores the procurement process that a project has undergone and its impact on the design of a building. Critics tend to concentrate on the finished product, the building, paying little or no attention to how the architect secured the job, who the client was, how they were represented, the client / architect relationship and how these had an impact on both design and design process, beyond functional requirements.

At the back of a dimly lit room at the north-east wing of the Philadelphia Museum of Art the visitor may, or may not, discover an old, weathered Spanish door. Approaching this unlikely sight, a concealed view behind the door becomes noticeable as a result of light emanating from two peepholes. The act of looking through them transforms the unsuspected viewer into a voyeur and reveals a brightly lit three-dimensional diorama: a recumbent, faceless, female nude, holding a gas lamp and bathed in light is submerged in twigs in an open landscape where a waterfall silently glitters [1a, 1b]. The explicit pornographic pose of the splayed legs and the exposed pudenda is dazzling. On careful inspection, this startling view is only possible through another intersecting surface; between the viewer and the nude stands a brick wall on which an irregular rupture has been opened – as if by a violent collision – making the scene even more unsettling. Defying traditional definitions of painting or sculpture Marcel Duchamp's enigmatic final work is a carefully constructed assemblage of elements, with an equally enigmatic title: Etant Donnés: 1°la chute d'eau, 2°le gaz d'éclairage… (Given: 1st the Waterfall, 2nd the Illuminating Gas…), 1946–1966.

As we watch a film, we let filmmakers take us by the hand and tell us a story until they lead us into a world visually constructed to captivate us for a specific amount of time. The worst thing a filmmaker can do is not to terrify us, or fool us with special effects, but to rob us of our illusion that what we are seeing is ‘true’ even if just for now. Through the mimetic power of film, we, the viewer, picture the film set as if it is real architecture, and assemble the walls and floors we see into an architectural whole. This paper focuses on what we see ‘behind’ the screen rather than the cinematic experience itself. The premise is that by examining the nature of filmic ‘reality’ we will be helped to understand architectural form and order.

More than three decades ago, the architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri pessimistically concluded that a revolutionary architecture cannot precede a social revolution. In this comment, he summed up the perceived failure of Modernist architecture to realise a social utopia. The comment implied that the architectural discipline, as part of the superstructure, cannot affect society; rather, it is the means and forces of production which determine society, while architecture only reacts, corresponds and represents these changes.

An unorthodox and influential critique of the modern city was published in 1908 by August Endell, an autodidact in the field of architecture. Influenced by empathy theory, Impressionist ideas, contemporary sociology, and the literary and artistic circles of the time, Endell's small book Die Schönheit der Großen Stadt (The Beauty of the Metropolis) read the metropolis through a new way of ‘seeing’ [1,2]. What he saw was surprising for most readers: the city's centre was discovered in marginal sites, and its lasting identity was grasped in its fleeting moments. Although Endell never drew up encompassing schemes for the city, did not participate in the first city-building competitions of the time, and focused primarily on individual building projects, one of his major publications was entirely devoted to the city. The Beauty of the Metropolis takes the reader on a journey through a city that slowly reveals itself as Berlin. Throughout the book, Endell describes urban scenes such as streets, plazas, stations, and the margins of urbanity, such as the city's blank walls and outskirts.

Concern with economic performance dominates the urban agenda of most modern cities, but this objective is pursued differently according to the ideology of the community. Amman follows distinctive development trajectories that reflect both the interactions of global forces and the local community. The primary global force affecting Amman is the competitive international environment engendered by economic globalisation that makes the city an increasingly attractive location for investment. This competition is manifested in city marketing strategies that reflect the desire to attract multinational corporations and specialists. The political ideology of the city plays an important role in the globalisation process currently taking place in Amman. In the USA, city planning is undertaken by different developmental agencies with limited participation of the city-region scale, while in Western Europe the state is involved in urban development and planning. Amman's situation is a mixture between state control and economic liberalism in which urban development is determined by the planning vision of attracting foreign investment and reduced restrictions to free enterprise.