The Metropolitan Tower is the first English-language edition of an influential French standard reference on the topic of the urban high-rise, originally published in 2012. It summarises, interprets, and explains the research of French architect and teacher Michel Kagan (1953–2009). Featuring some 600 photographs, sketches, and plans, along with Kagan’s own writings and contributions by 26 distinguished international authors who respond to his ideas with key elements of their own research, the volume comprehensively explores the typology of the metropolitan high-rise since the birth of early modernism.

In contrast with the individual expressionism of a single building, Kagan proposes an “architecture of relationships” that considers above all the context: “Place is the most important material for urban planning, without which the city does not exist.”

For this new English edition, the book’s content has been revised, updated, and expanded in the light of new research conducted by faculty of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) Paris-Val de Seine under the direction of Nathalie Régnier-Kagan. It offers a fascinating and multilayered panorama informing students, architects and critics alike on the topic of vertical architecture.