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This book brings the history of the geosciences and world cosmologies together, exploring many traditions, including Chinese, Pacific, Islamic, South and Southeast Asian conceptions of the earth’s origin and makeup. Together the chapters ask: How have different ideas about the sacred, animate, and earthly changed modern environmental sciences? How have different world(...)
Environment and environmental theory
November 2023
New earth histories: Geo-cosmologies and the making of the modern world
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This book brings the history of the geosciences and world cosmologies together, exploring many traditions, including Chinese, Pacific, Islamic, South and Southeast Asian conceptions of the earth’s origin and makeup. Together the chapters ask: How have different ideas about the sacred, animate, and earthly changed modern environmental sciences? How have different world traditions understood human and geological origins? How does the inclusion of multiple cosmologies change the meaning of the Anthropocene and the global climate crisis? By carefully examining these questions, ''New earth histories'' sets an ambitious agenda for how we think about the earth. The chapters consider debates about the age and structure of the earth, how humans and earth systems interact, and how empire has been conceived in multiple traditions. The methods the authors deploy are diverse—from cultural history and visual and material studies to ethnography, geography, and Indigenous studies—and the effect is to highlight how earth knowledge emerged from historically specific situations. ''New earth histories'' provides both a framework for studying science at a global scale and fascinating examples to educate as well as inspire future work. Essential reading for students and scholars of earth science history, environmental humanities, history of science and religion, and science and empire.
Environment and environmental theory
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Welcome to Blubberland--a world of quadruple-garaged mansions, vast malls, gated communities, stretch limos, and posh resorts. Blubberland is a place, but it is also a state of mind: we expect to be happy (trophy house, SUV in the driveway, home entertainment system, pension fund, cosmetic surgery), but in fact we've grown increasingly bloated, bored, and miserable. In(...)
Blubberland: the dangers of happiness
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Welcome to Blubberland--a world of quadruple-garaged mansions, vast malls, gated communities, stretch limos, and posh resorts. Blubberland is a place, but it is also a state of mind: we expect to be happy (trophy house, SUV in the driveway, home entertainment system, pension fund, cosmetic surgery), but in fact we've grown increasingly bloated, bored, and miserable. In Blubberland, award-winning critic Elizabeth Farrelly looks at our "superfluous superfluity," our huge eco-footprint, and asks why we find it so hard to abandon habits we know to be destructive. Why can't we build human-scale cities, design meaningful public spaces, eat reasonable meals, and stop assaulting nature? Farrelly, trained as an architect, begins this story with architecture, urban sprawl, and housing, but she does not end there. She also looks at "affluenza," childhood asthma, diabetes, addiction, beauty, ugliness, narcissism, climate change, mega-churches, big box retailers, sustainability, depression, anorexia, and the links that collect all of these issues under the same roof--the roof, as it were, of the McMansion. As "big" becomes more and more pervasive, and success is seen in increasingly measurable and material terms, the goal of happiness jeopardizes our survival. Blubberland is a smart, thoughtful, and stylish argument for turning things around.
Urban Theory
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Plastiglomerates, surveillance robot dogs, fordite, artificial grass, antenna trees, COVID-19, decapitated mountains, drone-fighting eagles, standardized bananas: all of these specimens—some more familiar than others—are examples of the hybridity that shapes the current landscapes of science, technology and everyday life. Inspired by medieval bestiaries and the(...)
A bestiary of the Anthropocene. Hybrid plants, animals, minerals, fungi, and other specimens
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Plastiglomerates, surveillance robot dogs, fordite, artificial grass, antenna trees, COVID-19, decapitated mountains, drone-fighting eagles, standardized bananas: all of these specimens—some more familiar than others—are examples of the hybridity that shapes the current landscapes of science, technology and everyday life. Inspired by medieval bestiaries and the increasingly visible effects of climate change on the planet, French researcher Nicolas Nova & art collective DISNOVATION.ORG provide an ethnographic guide to the ''post-natural'' era in which we live, highlighting the amalgamations of nature and artifice that already co-exist in the 21st century. A sort of field handbook, ''A bestiary of the Anthropocene'' aims to help us orient ourselves within the technosphere and the biosphere. What happens when technologies and their unintended consequences become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to define what is “natural” or not? What does it mean to live in a hybrid environment made of organic and synthetic matter? In order to answer such questions, Nova & DISNOVATION.ORG bring their own research together with contributions from collectives such as the Center for Genomic Gastronomy and Aliens in Green as well as text by scholars and researchers from around the world. Polish graphic designer Maria Roszkowska provides illustrations.
Environment and environmental theory
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During the two hundred millennia we've been on the planet, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. In a fascinating narrative that ranges through cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious story of how urban living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Uruk, the world's first city, he shows that cities(...)
Metropolis: a history of the city, mankind's greatest invention
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During the two hundred millennia we've been on the planet, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city. In a fascinating narrative that ranges through cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious story of how urban living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Uruk, the world's first city, he shows that cities created such a blossoming of human endeavor--new professions, new forms of art, worship, and trade--that they kick-started civilization itself. Despite outbreaks of plague and war, and outlasting empires, the city endured and new cities sprang up to capture the inimitable energy of human beings together. Wilson reveals the innovations nurturned amid the density of urban centers over the centuries: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris. In the modern age, the skyscrapers of New York City inspired utopian visions of community design, while the trees of twenty-first-century Seattle and Shanghai point to a sustainable future in the age of climate change. Page turning and irresistible, ''Metropolis'' is a history of cities that is also a history of how humanity lives.
Urban Theory
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Is it possible for the economy to grow without the environment being destroyed? Will our lifestyles impoverish the planet for our children and grandchildren? Is the world sick? Can it be healed? Less than a lifetime ago, these questions would have made no sense. This was not because our ancestors had no impact on nature—nor because they were unaware of the serious damage(...)
Environment and environmental theory
November 2018
The environment: a history of an idea
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Is it possible for the economy to grow without the environment being destroyed? Will our lifestyles impoverish the planet for our children and grandchildren? Is the world sick? Can it be healed? Less than a lifetime ago, these questions would have made no sense. This was not because our ancestors had no impact on nature—nor because they were unaware of the serious damage they had done. What people lacked was an idea: a way of imagining the web of interconnection and consequence of which the natural world is made. Without this notion, we didn’t have a way to describe the scale and scope of human impact upon nature. This idea was "the environment." Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin trace the emergence of the concept of the environment following World War II, a period characterized by both hope for a new global order and fear of humans’ capacity for almost limitless destruction. It was at this moment that a new idea and a new narrative about the planet-wide impact of people's behavior emerged, closely allied to anxieties for the future. Now we had a vocabulary for talking about how we were changing nature: resource exhaustion and energy, biodiversity, pollution, and—eventually—climate change. With the rise of "the environment," the authors argue, came new expertise, making certain kinds of knowledge crucial to understanding the future of our planet.
Environment and environmental theory
Mining photography
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Photography has always depended on the extraction and exploitation of so-called natural raw materials. Having started out using copper, coal, silver, and paper—the raw materials of analogue image production in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—photography now relies, in the age of the smartphone, on rare earths and metals like coltan, cobalt, and europium. The(...)
March 2023
Mining photography
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Photography has always depended on the extraction and exploitation of so-called natural raw materials. Having started out using copper, coal, silver, and paper—the raw materials of analogue image production in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—photography now relies, in the age of the smartphone, on rare earths and metals like coltan, cobalt, and europium. The exhibition focuses on the history of key raw materials utilized in photography and establishes a connection between the history of their extraction, their disposal, and climate change. Looking at historical and contemporary works, it tells the story of photography as a history of industrial production and demonstrates that the medium is deeply implicated in human-induced changes to nature. The exhibition shows contemporary works by a range of photographers and artists, including Ignacio Acosta, Lisa Barnard, F Cartier, Susanne Kriemann, Mary Mattingly, Daphné Nan Le Sergent, Lisa Rave, Alison Rossiter, Metabolic Studio’s Optics Division, Robert Smithson, Simon Starling, Anaïs Tondeur, James Welling, Noa Yafe and Tobias Zielony, along with historical works by Eduard Christian Arning, Hermann Biow, Oscar and Theodor Hofmeister, Jürgen Friedrich Mahrt, Hermann Reichling, and others, and historical material from the Agfa Foto-Historama in Leverkusen, the Eastman Kodak Archive in Rochester and the FOMU Photo Museum in Antwerp as well as mineral samples collected by Alexander von Humboldt from the collection of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin.
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National historic sites commemorate decisive moments in the making of Canada. But seen through an environmental lens, these sites become artifacts of a bigger story: the occupation and transformation of nature into nation. In an age of pressing discussions about environmental sustainability, there is a growing need to know more about the history of our relationship with(...)
Nature, place, and story: rethinking historic sites in Canada
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National historic sites commemorate decisive moments in the making of Canada. But seen through an environmental lens, these sites become artifacts of a bigger story: the occupation and transformation of nature into nation. In an age of pressing discussions about environmental sustainability, there is a growing need to know more about the history of our relationship with the natural world and what lessons these places of public history, regional identity, and national narrative can teach us. "Nature, place, and story" provides new interpretations for five of Canada’s largest and most iconic historic sites (two of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites): L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland; Grand Pré, Nova Scotia; Fort William, Ontario; the Forks of the Red River, Manitoba; and the Bar U Ranch, Alberta. At each location, Claire Campbell rewrites public history as environmental history, revealing the country’s debt to the power and fragility of the natural world, and the relevance of the past to understanding climate change, agricultural sustainability, wilderness protection, urban reclamation, and fossil fuel extraction. From the medieval Atlantic to modern ranchlands, environmental history speaks directly to contemporary questions about the health of Canada’s habitat. Bringing together public and environmental history in an entirely new way, "Nature, place, and story" is a lively and ambitious call for a fresh perspective on natural heritage.
Architecture in Canada
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This publication sheds light on the reflections that led to the creation of EXIT, the 360° video installation created for the exhibition spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris. Based on an idea by French philosopher and urbanist, Paul Virilio, the 360° video installation EXIT was created in 2008 by the New York-based studio of artists and(...)
Diller Scofidio + Renfro: Exit: Based on an idea by Paul Virilio
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This publication sheds light on the reflections that led to the creation of EXIT, the 360° video installation created for the exhibition spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris. Based on an idea by French philosopher and urbanist, Paul Virilio, the 360° video installation EXIT was created in 2008 by the New York-based studio of artists and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro for the exhibition spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris. Composed of a series of animated maps generated by data, this immersive installation investigates human migrations today and their leading causes, including the impact of climate change. Through six scenarios - Population Shifts: Cities; Remittances: Sending Money Home; Political Refugees and Forced Migration; Rising Seas, Sinking Cities; Natural Disasters; and Speechless and Deforestation - it provides the rare opportunity to understand visually the complex relationships between the various economic, political and environmental factors underpinning contemporary human migrations. The work was updated entirely in 2015, reflecting the alarming evolution of the data since it was first presented in 2008. Through various texts, descriptions of the animated maps, and numerous illustrations, this book sheds light on the reflections that led to the creation of EXIT, and proposes to delve deeper into the very notions and questions that it raises and that are more relevant today than ever.
Architecture Monographs
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The successful conversion and expansion of abandoned buildings and relics from the industrial past have been the mission of Atelier Deshaus from Shanghai since 2001. The question of how formerly closed industrial complexes can be transformed into new, attractive places for the public is the core theme of this exhibition. It focuses on the transformation along the Huangpu(...)
Atelier Deshaus, Shanghai: Common Landscape, Re-Cultivating Industrial Sites
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The successful conversion and expansion of abandoned buildings and relics from the industrial past have been the mission of Atelier Deshaus from Shanghai since 2001. The question of how formerly closed industrial complexes can be transformed into new, attractive places for the public is the core theme of this exhibition. It focuses on the transformation along the Huangpu River in Shanghai, whose seamless accessibility as a public space was heralded by Expo 2010 Better City - Better Life. Aedes is showing seven projects that have used the potential of former industrial sites to bring new functions to the riverbank and to which the residents attach both emotional and cultural significance. Abandoned production sites and relics of inner-city heavy industry, warehouses, and port facilities can be a huge burden on the sustainable development of a city, especially if they are seen as waste to be disposed of. With its projects, Atelier Deshaus shows how the grey energy used in them can be preserved, at least in parts, through conversion and reconstruction, and how new functions can be assigned. In the face of climate change and the generally far too energy-hungry construction industry, it is also an obvious necessity in China to take an unbiased look at existing buildings. Nevertheless, demolition is still often the priority. Atelier Deshaus counters this with a strategy of minimal intervention that sensitively heralds the transformation of the existing buildings without destroying the historical reminders.
Architecture Monographs
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We are living through a global catastrophe. Buildings affect how we feel, moment by moment, day by day. They have the power to lift us up and make us feel awestruck, playful, safe, and inspired, just as they can make us feel alienated and sad. But many of the places where we live, work, learn, and heal have become monotonous and disposable. We’re surrounded by cheap,(...)
Humanize: A maker's guide to designing our cities
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We are living through a global catastrophe. Buildings affect how we feel, moment by moment, day by day. They have the power to lift us up and make us feel awestruck, playful, safe, and inspired, just as they can make us feel alienated and sad. But many of the places where we live, work, learn, and heal have become monotonous and disposable. We’re surrounded by cheap, boring buildings that make people stressed, sick, and unhappy. In short, much of our world has been crafted in a way that is hostile to human experience. Now, drawing on his experience of the last thirty years in making bold, beautiful objects and buildings, Thomas Heatherwick offers both an informed critique of the inhumanity in most of today’s contemporary building design, and a rousing call for action. Looking through Heatherwick’s eyes, we see familiar landmarks and cityscapes around the world, from London, Paris, Barcelona, Singapore, New York, Vancouver, and beyond, both old and new, famous and obscure, to learn how places can either sap the life out of us—or nourish our senses and our psyche. The time has come, he says, to put emotion back at the heart of the design process, and the reasons to do so could not be more urgent. Design is not superficial: it has an impact upon economics, climate change, our mental and physical wellbeing—even the peace and cohesion of our societies.
Urban Theory