Summum Bonum [antikvár]

Summum Bonum "Aquinas took from Aristotle the notion of an ultimate end, or goal - a summum bonum - at which all human action is directed; and, like Aristotle, he conceived of this end as necessarily connected with happiness. " (Detail from the title "Summum bonum" of the Encylopadia Britannica) The title of this book means "ultimate end", which we use in the same sense as Aristotle did, by linking the concept with satisfaction and happiness. On these pages, we, Gábor and Miklós, want to show you what we see, believe and experience as good in the big city milieu of our times. Today's trend in public thinking might claim that a truly comfortable and pleasant life can only be lived outside the city, in the "greenery". In contrast to such reasoning, we wish to prove that life can be lived extremely pleasantly in the built environment of big cities and all the good that is needed to live life to the full can be found there. The book is organised around those central drives which are translated into the various atmospheres created by facades, streets seducing us in many ways with their lights, the characteristic features of different styles, windows, tiles, panelling and breathtaking reflections that can be found in every city. Energy, continuity, extravagance, courage, playfulness, sensuality, dynamism and harmony are the notions around which we arranged the objects of our admiration: the works of the greatest architects of our time - streets, buildings and some interiors. Cities not only provide the private space for our lives but they also convey and mediate culture. As such they form a bridge between past and present. Within their walls dating back hundreds of years the knowledge, passions, joys and sorrows that have been accumulated by generations become an organic part of the present. In cities everything is alive and has a story to tell. Those that have the gift to open themselves up to these silent stories can tune in to the atmospheres of their environment and will thus be able to savour more of its tastes. We personally live life in Budapest like that and we take this vision with us whenever we go to cities in other countries. Also, we embrace this feeling when we design our new city, so that those who will live and work there can call it home in the truest sense of the word. The urbanisation we stand for is based on new urban development principles which successfully blend the passionate creativity of an engineer with classical traditions and the new opportunities afforded to us by modern technologies. In our approach the aesthetic qualities and human face of the built environment equally reflect classic architecture, multi-faceted ideas and mature functional ism. With new urbanism cities will be built where their inhabitants can feel that the space they live in has been created to cater to their needs and ways of life. It is our desire to explore the treasures of our past and use them whenever we can. Thus, our book will illustrate the symbiosis of the built environments of bygone eras and the architecture of our present time by presenting numerous examples of how the perfect big city environment of the 21st century can be built with the help of old and new complementing each other. Gábor Petrovszky & Miklós Schiffer