Nick Frank
Urban photography by artist Nick Frank. (via ISO50)
4 months ago
Lecture by Neil Brenner //// Chicago Expander at Archeworks
Thrilled to announce the inaugural lecture of the Chicago Expander at Archeworks program that I co-direct along with Antonio Petrov. Hope to see you all there!!!!
/// Neil Brenner - The Urban Age in Question///
Monday, January 28, 2013 at 6:00pm | Graham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place, Chicago, IL 60610
In what sense is the 21st century world urban? In this lecture, Neil Brenner critiques contemporary ideologies of the “urban age.” Excavating Henri Lefebvre’s (1970) notion of generalized urbanization, Brenner argues that the geographies of urbanization can no longer be conceptualized with reference to cities, metropolitan regions or even megalopolises, but today encompass diverse patterns and pathways across the planetary sociospatial landscape - from Manhattan to the Matterhorn, from the Pearl River Delta to Mount Everest, from the Nile River valley to the Pacific Ocean. This variegated urban fabric must become the focal point for new approaches to urban theory, strategies of collective intervention and imaginaries of built environments.
Neil Brenner is Professor of Urban Theory at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the coordinator of the newly founded Urban Theory Lab GSD. He previously served as Professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, and as an affiliated faculty member of the American Studies Program at New York University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago (1999); an MA in Geography from UCLA (1996); and a BA in Philosophy from Yale College (1991).
4 months ago
Urban Uprising! Re-imagining the city symposium
Interesting symposium if you are in NYC this Friday and Saturday
5 months ago
Reimagining Recreation
(Satisfied customers at Richard Dattner’s West 67th Street adventure playground, 1966. Photo Richard Dattner.)
“As architect James Sanders points out in his book Celluloid Skyline, sometime around the start of Mayor John V. Lindsay’s administration in January 1966,official New York stopped behaving like the grudging, gritty industrial city it had been and started acting like a giant outdoor stage for itself, promoting amenities, events, and initiatives that framed the city as a place to be collectively enjoyed, not simply survived. It also openly embraced the concept of fun, and the drama that public pleasure affords in a post-industrial metropolis. In essence, enjoyment of the city became an accepted part of public policy.” - James Trainor in Cabinet in Issue 45
9 months ago
The Plan of Chicago
The Plan of Chicago as imagined by Pruned. Part of his fantastic (Im)possible Chicago series.
11 months ago
What Pittsburgh Looked Like When It Decided It Had a Pollution Problem
(Image courtesy of Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection, ca. 1940-1950, AIS.1978.22, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.)
In 1941, influenced by a similar policy introduced in St. Louis four years earlier, the city of Pittsburgh passed a law designed to reduce coal production in pursuit of cleaner air. Not willing to cripple such an important part of the local economy, it promised to clean the air by using treated local coal. The new policy ended up not being fully enacted until after World War II.(The Atlantic City)
11 months ago
A City Rises, Along With Its Hopes
(The entrance pavilion to the Botanical Garden in Medellín, Colombia, designed by Lorenzo Castro. Paul Smith for The New York Times)
“What sets Medellín apart is the particular strength of its culture of urbanism, which acts now almost like a civic calling card. The city’s new mayor, Aníbal Gaviria, spent an hour describing to me his dreams for burying a congested highway that runs through the middle of town, building an electric tram along the hillsides to stem the sprawl of the slums, adding a green belt of public buildings along the tram, rehabilitating the Medellín River and densifying the city center — smart, public-spirited, improvements. It’s as if, in this country whose relatively robust economy has underwritten many forward-thinking projects, every mayor here has to have enormous architectural and infrastructural plans, or risk coming across as small-minded or an outsider.” (New York Times)
11 months ago
Subway Systems Obey Emergent, Natural Laws As They Grow
The design of subway systems in big cities conforms to certain patterns regardless of where, when, and how they’re built. So where does that leave designers? (Fast Company)
11 months ago
Jungleland
(Two houses on Alabo Street, one abandoned, one occupied. Photo by Andrew Moore/European Pressphoto Agency)
The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans Gives New Meaning to ‘Urban Growth.’ The Lower Ninth has become a dumping ground for unwanted dogs and cats. People from all over the city take the Claiborne Avenue Bridge over the Industrial Canal, bounce along the fractured streets until they reach a suitably empty area and then toss the animals out of the car. But it’s not just pets. The neighborhood has become a dumping ground for many kinds of unwanted things. (New York Times)
1 year ago
Soon to be Razed, a Philadelphia Neighborhood Frozen in Time
A recent visit to Philadelphia’s Naval Yards, currently awaiting redevelopment, offers a glimpse of an abandoned community soon to be demolished forever. The Naval Yards, and the residential communities that ring it, sit frozen in time since it was last populated, during the height of America’s military industrial complex. (Architizer)
1 year ago
