Cities in Time examines the growing phenomenon of ‘pop-up’ architecture and temporary urbanism, placing it within a clear theoretical framework to explore what it means for the future of our cities.

From street-markets and pop-up shops to art installations and Olympic parks, the temporary use of urban space is a growing international trend in architecture and urban design. Partly a response to economic and ecological crisis, it also claims to offer a critique of the status quo and an innovative way forward for the urban future. Cities in Time aims to explore and understand the phenomenon, offering a first critical and theoretical evaluation of temporary urbanism and its implications for the present and future of our cities. The book argues that temporary urbanism needs to be understood within the broader context of how different concepts of time are embedded in the city. In any urban place, multiple, discordant and diverse timeframes are at play – and the chapters here explore these different conceptions of temporality, their causes and their effects. Themes explored include how institutionalised time regulates everyday urban life, how technological and economic changes have accelerated the city’s rhythms, our existential and personal senses of time, concepts of memory and identity, virtual spaces, ephemerality and permanence.

"This is a robust contribution on an emergent topic." - Times Higher Education

"Ali Madanipour has produced with this expertly written book a long overdue theoretical contextualisation of Temporary Urbanism. By taking three different notions of time - instrumental, existential, and experimental - the book delivers a striking conceptual approach and multidimensional understanding of Temporary Urbanism that goes far beyond the numerous studies and texts published over the last decade." - Florian Kossak, Senior Lecturer for Urban History, Theory and Design, University of Sheffield, UK

"Britain's top theorist of spatial exclusion now tackles the new urban spaces drawing the public in. Madanipour brilliantly shows how temporary urbanism - fleeting fashion in urban design, land-uses and lifestyles - is a symptom of living in fast, but precarious times, as the city itself becomes an ephemeral event." - Hilary Silver, Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies at Brown University, USA