Sf novels where a city/architecture is key

[merritt]

Man in the Maze by Silverberg - Awesome!

 

[reiver33]

Metropolitan and its sequel City On Fire, by Walter Jon Williams

 

[anno]

Moorcock gives good city,wether Rossenstrasse or Mother London...

 

[Venusian Broon]

Alastair Gray's Lanark which is about Glasgow/Unthank....maybe fits your bill.
J. G. Ballard's The Drowned World has a nice take on a swamped London.
Iain M. Banks Feersum Endjinn I seem to remember having lots of big architecture.

 

[hitmouse]

He Built a Crooked House ss by Robert Heinlein about someone who builds a 4 dimensional house, and the consequences.
Vurt Jeff Noon bizarre, psychedelic Manchester
The Final Programme and other Jerry Cornelius stories by Michael Moorcock. Much of this is set in a decadent future version of Notting Hill. You can see where some of the inspiration came from if you look at the first 20 minutes or so of this documentary about the band Hawkwind:

Bick has already mentioned Ballard's short stories. I think it is worth going a bit further with Ballard:
High Rise. Set in a residential high rise. These were seen as the great post war solution to the old innercity slums. In retrospect they destroyed communities and dehumanised the inhabitants to a significant degree.
Vermilion Sands. A collection of related short stories about a community of atristic exiles living in a desert community. Concentrates on the architecture and isolation of the community.
The Unlimited Dream Company. Shepperton gets a psychedelic makeover.
Cocaine Nights and Super Cannes. Both set in the Mediterrannean coastal super conurbations around Cannes, and the Costa Del Sol. Anyone who has ever driven SouthWest along the main road from Malaga will have seen this strange, divorced, largely expatriate coastal strip with miles of gated communities, British pubs, and golf courses.
Ballard's intense dystopic visions of urban life were a significant insiration to the early British electronica scene, as discussed in the early parts of this fascinating film:

 

[Mirannan]

Two more examples, one of which is a parody of the other: The first set is the Foundation series especially Prelude to Foundation, set (at least to some extent on Trantor. And the other is Bill the Galactic Hero.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The City and The City by China Mieville springs to mind.

The one I first thought of. One of his very best.

 

[hitmouse]

Last Letters from Hav by Jan Morris. About a remote European city state. Loosley based on Trieste.

Has anyone mentioned Titus Groan yet?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Alastair Gray's shorts about the Axeltree in Unlikely Stories Mostly
Orbitsville by Bob Shaw?

Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was a novel too - though as Thea von Harbau went on to be an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi regime I don't think it's often read.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Harry Harrison's A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

 

[wam]

80s/90s comic book Mister X starts with an architect and a "sick" city that he inadvertantly created.