North American urbanization will be the topic when the School of Architecture's Urban Research Center hosts a symposium March 11-13 titled "Design, Modernity and American Cities." The symposium, which is open to the campus community and the general public, will include lectures, panel discussions and research and design presentations.
The symposium will consider American cities as the expression of a rich and varied national culture, evolving against a backdrop of an increasingly global, modern civilization, said Jacqueline Tatom, visiting assistant professor of architecture, who, along with Eric Mumford, Ph.D., assistant professor of architectural history and theory, is organizing the conference.
The symposium will emphasize a broad, pluralistic approach to the design challenges posed by American metropolitan conditions. These include design issues related to land use in or near historic core areas and providing new infrastructure for outlying areas that are rapidly being converted from agricultural uses.
Peter Rowe, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, will be the keynote speaker. Rowe will discuss "Design and the Transformation of the American City" at 5 p.m. March 11. Other featured lecturers are Gwendolyn Wright, professor of architectural history at Columbia University School of Architecture, on "Practicing Pragmatism as a Theory for Urban Design" at 1 p.m. March 12, and Alan Plattus, associate dean at Yale University School of Architecture, on "Building Alone and Building in Groups" at 1 p.m. March 13. All three lectures are part of the School of Architecture's Monday Night Lecture Series and will be in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.
Panel discussions linked to the lectures will be held in Givens Hall. These sessions are "Culture and American Cities" at 2:30 p.m. March 12; "Design and American Cities" at 8:30 a.m. March 13; and "Democracy and American Cities," after Plattus' 1 p.m. lecture March 13.
In addition to Mumford and Tatom, faculty serving on the panels are Jo Noero, the Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture and director of the graduate architecture program; Casey Blake, Ph.D., associate professor of architecture and of history in Arts and Sciences; John Hoal, associate professor of architecture and director of the Master of Architecture and Urban Design program; Adrian Luchini, associate professor of architecture; and Tim Franke, assistant professor of architecture.
Invited participants include design professors Hashim Sarkis of Harvard Graduate School of Design, Roy Strickland of the MIT School of Architecture and Charles Waldheim, director of the Landscape Urbanism program at the University of Illinois -- Chicago.
