Literary texts and buildings have always represented space, narrated cultural and political values, and functioned as sites of personal and collective identity. In the twentieth century, new forms of narrative have represented cultural modernity, political idealism and architectural innovation. Writing the Modern City explores the diverse and fascinating relationships between literature, architecture and modernity and considers how they have shaped the world today.

Preface Jonathan Charley and Sarah Edwards Time, Space and Narrative: Reflections on Architecture, Literature and Modernity Jonathan Charley Part 1. Memory, Nation, Identity Remembering and Forgetting: Private and Public Lives in the Imagined Nation Sarah Edwards Poets, Tramps and a Town-Planner: A Survey of Raymond Unwin's On-Site Persona Brian Ward Unhomely Desire: Dismantling the Walls of Difference in Gora's Kolkata Mark Mukherjee Campbell 'The Past Forsworn': Colonialism and Counterhistory in the Work of Doris Lessing Victoria Rosner Part 2. Movement, Culture, Genre Drugs, Crime and Other Worlds Jonathan Charley Architectural Crimes and Architectural Solutions Peter Clandfield Philip K. Dick's Disturbanism: Towards Psychospatial Readings of Science Fiction David T. Fortin Alexander Trocchi: Glasgow through the Eye of a Needle Gary A. Boyd Part 3. Narrative, Form, Space Anonymous Encounters: The Structuring of Space in Postmodern Narratives of the City Sarah Edwards The Novel Architecture of Georges Perec Stefanie Elisabeth Sobelle Sex Happens: a Phenomenological Reading of the Casual Encounter Renée Tobe 'There Are Different Ways of Making the Streets Tell': Narrative, Urban Space and Orientation Inga Bryden