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introduction by Bernard Tschumi In A Landscape of Events, the celebratedFrench architect, urban planner, and philosopher Paul Virilio focuses on thecultural chaos of the 1980s and 1990s. It was a time, he writes, that reflected the"cruelty of an epoch, the hills and dales of daily life, the usual clumps of habitsand commonplaces."Urban disorientation, the machines of war, and the acceleration ofevents in contemporary life are Virilio's ongoing concerns. He explores them inevents ranging from media coverage of the Gulf War to urban rioting and lawlessness.Some will see Virilio as a pessimist discouraged by "the acceleration of the realityof time," while others will find his recording of "atypical events" to beclairvoyant.