Loving the High Line
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As an elevated rail line, designed to lift freight trains serving the Hudson River docks above street level circulation, The High Line was originally constructed as material infrastructure for an industrial city. It was closed in 1960s and stood abandoned for the next forty years. In this time organic debris accumulated and decayed, and seeds landed on the newly forming(...)
Loving the High Line
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As an elevated rail line, designed to lift freight trains serving the Hudson River docks above street level circulation, The High Line was originally constructed as material infrastructure for an industrial city. It was closed in 1960s and stood abandoned for the next forty years. In this time organic debris accumulated and decayed, and seeds landed on the newly forming soil creating a meadow on the derelict railbed. This microcosmic biome then also became a heterotopic, other space, in the social ecology of the city as an efflorescence of new art forms and underground subcultures flourished in the evacuated post-industrial spaces of Chelsea. These processes would unfold as New York City was being transformed into a global center in an emerging political-economy defined by the integration of finance capital with media and information industries. In this, marginal spaces of the kind that developed in Chelsea, and the cultures that create them, became important sources of new aesthetic and cultural innovation, that offer an exploitable social ground from which to extract semiotic value. As the Bloomberg administration gave shape to this new regime, a project was initiated to convert the High Line into a publicly accessible, linear park. This would be realized through a convoluted process in which the manifold tensions and contradictions of the postmodern city would be dramatically played out and the disjunctions between ideal image regimes and the reality of the material substrates that support them would be brought to light, if only to be newly obscured. The High Line urban park has been both heralded as a definitive model for new urban development, and denounced as a driver, or at least a morbid symptom, of devastating gentrification, and the destructive financialization of urban space. This text, originally published in 2015 as part of the Deconstructing the High Line anthology, edited by Mark Linder and Brian Rosa, tracks a collection of interconnected historical treads that converge in the reconstruction of the High Line, and situates the project within architectural discourse and practice, and social and material conditions with which it struggles to engage.
Urban Landscapes
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For decades Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) designed parks and park systems across the United States, leaving an enduring legacy of designed public space that is enjoyed, studied, and protected today. His plans and professional correspondence offer a rich source for understanding his remarkable contribution to the quality of urban life in this country and the(...)
Landscape Architecture, Monographs
October 2006, Baltimore
The papers of Frederick Law Olmsted : volume VII, parks, politics, and patronage 1874-1882
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For decades Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) designed parks and park systems across the United States, leaving an enduring legacy of designed public space that is enjoyed, studied, and protected today. His plans and professional correspondence offer a rich source for understanding his remarkable contribution to the quality of urban life in this country and the development of the profession of landscape architecture. Olmsted's writings also provide a unique record of society and politics in post–Civil War America. Historians, landscape architects, conservationists, city planners, and citizens’ groups continue to turn to Olmsted for inspiration in their planning and protection of public open space in our cities. This latest and seventh volume of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted presents the record of his last years of residence in New York City. It includes reports on the design of Riverside and Morningside parks and Tompkins Square in Manhattan, as well as his comprehensive plan for the street system and rapid transit routes of the Bronx. It records his continuing work on Central Park and presents his final retrospective statement, “The Spoils of the Park.” In addition, volume seven contains an annotated version of the journal in which Olmsted recorded instances of political maneuvering and patronage politics in the years before his dismissal from the New York parks department in 1878. Later documents chronicle the early stages of his planning of the Boston park system—the Back Bay Fens, Arnold Arboretum, and Riverway. Other major commissions, each with its own political complications, were the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, the completion of the new state capitol in Albany, the designing of a park on Mount Royal in Montreal, and construction of the park system of Buffalo, New York. The volume also presents Olmsted’s commentary on issues of the times including federal Reconstruction policy and civil-service reform. The Olmsted Papers project is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Trust for the Humanities, the National Association for Olmsted Parks, as well as private foundations and individuals.
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October 2006, Baltimore
Landscape Architecture, Monographs
Forming cityscapes: plants
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In this project, graphic designers Jamie Yeo and Gideon Kong obsessively observe and photograph minor urban occurrences in Singapore which possibly challenge popular ideas about the city being “clean and green” or inauthentic. The images reveal creative forms of appropriation (or resistance) that indirectly critique top-down design implementations or suggest other(...)
Forming cityscapes: plants
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In this project, graphic designers Jamie Yeo and Gideon Kong obsessively observe and photograph minor urban occurrences in Singapore which possibly challenge popular ideas about the city being “clean and green” or inauthentic. The images reveal creative forms of appropriation (or resistance) that indirectly critique top-down design implementations or suggest other micro-possibilities of use. In this instalment, plants are the focus. Whether growing wild or carefully tended, vegetation in the city is often taken for granted. Here we see them serve dual functions as drying racks, shoe hangers, trash receptacles, and seasonal holiday decorations.
Urban Landscapes
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Is the capital of Latin America a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River? Will California soon hold the balance of power in Mexican national politics? Will Latinos reinvigorate the US labor movement? These are some of the provocative questions that Mike Davis explores in this fascinating account of the Latinization of the US urban landscape. As he forefully shows,(...)
Magical urbanism: Latinos reinvent the US city
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Is the capital of Latin America a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River? Will California soon hold the balance of power in Mexican national politics? Will Latinos reinvigorate the US labor movement? These are some of the provocative questions that Mike Davis explores in this fascinating account of the Latinization of the US urban landscape. As he forefully shows, this is a demographic and cultural revolution with extraordinary implications. With Spanish surnames increasing five times faster than the general population, salsa is becoming the predominant ethnic rhythm (and flavor) of contemporary city life. In Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, and (shortly) Dallas, Latinos outnumber non-Hispanic whites; in New York, San Diego and Phoenix they outnumber Blacks. According to the Bureau of the Census, Latinos will supply fully two-thirds of the nation’s population growth between now and the middle of the 21st century when nearly 100 millions Americans will boast Latin American ancestry.
Urban Theory
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Parks are importantly fertile places to talk about land. Whether its big national parks, provincial campgrounds, isolated conservation areas, destination parks, or humble urban patches of grass, we tend to speak of parks as unqualified goods. People think of parks as public or common land, and it is a common belief that parks are the best uses of land and are good for(...)
On this patch of grass: city parks and the politics of occupied land
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Parks are importantly fertile places to talk about land. Whether its big national parks, provincial campgrounds, isolated conservation areas, destination parks, or humble urban patches of grass, we tend to speak of parks as unqualified goods. People think of parks as public or common land, and it is a common belief that parks are the best uses of land and are good for everyone. But no park is innocent. Parks are lionized as "natural oases," and urban parks as "pure nature" in the midst of the city -- but that's absurd. Parks are as "natural" as the roads or buildings around them, and just as political. Every park in North America is performing modernity and settler colonialism everyday. Furthermore, parks are not private property, but while they are called ''public'', they are highly regulated spaces that normatively demand and closely control behaviours. Parks are a certain kind of property, and thus creations of law, and they are subject to all kinds of presumptions about what parks are for, and what kinds of people should be doing what kinds of things in them. Parks- as they are currently constituted- are colonial enterprises.
Landscape Theory
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With "Edens lost & found", filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell herald a sea change in the relationship between ordinary citizens, environmental groups, and government. From across America they gather evidence of a new spirit of cooperation among neighbors, planners, architects and builders, city officials, and government agencies. Indeed, as urban issues have become(...)
Urban Landscapes
May 2006, White River Junction
Edens lost and found : how ordinary citizens are restoring our great American cities
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With "Edens lost & found", filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell herald a sea change in the relationship between ordinary citizens, environmental groups, and government. From across America they gather evidence of a new spirit of cooperation among neighbors, planners, architects and builders, city officials, and government agencies. Indeed, as urban issues have become undeniably urgent problems that demand answers, people from disparate backgrounds and political leanings are joining forces to recast life in American cities. As citizens take action where government has failed, they are finding support, encouragement, and help from their neighbors. Conversely, as progressive-minded government agencies and organizations explore nontraditional solutions, an energized community rallies to the cause. Neither exclusively top-down, nor grass roots, we are in the midst of an unprecedented movement that unites efforts from every quarter in a common cause. Focusing on Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle-four cities that face vastly different challenges-"Edens lost & found" highlights the remarkable power of hope, pride, ingenuity, and chutzpah that characterize this era of collaboration. Bioengineering concepts-now increasingly understood by many to offer the most effective, cost-efficient solutions-are playing a central role. Working with-rather than in opposition to-nature is leading to such innovations as rooftop and urban gardens, restored parks, transformed vacant lots, the re-greening of city streets, and eco-friendly watershed management. Edens Lost & Found shows how working to reshape the land also transforms the relationships people have to one another.
Urban Landscapes
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Japan today protects one-seventh of its land surface in parks, which are visited by well over a billion people each year. Parkscapes analyzes the origins, development, and distinctive features of these public spaces. Green zones were created by the government beginning in the late nineteenth century for state purposes but eventually evolved into sites of negotiation(...)
Parkscapes: green spaces in modern Japan
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Japan today protects one-seventh of its land surface in parks, which are visited by well over a billion people each year. Parkscapes analyzes the origins, development, and distinctive features of these public spaces. Green zones were created by the government beginning in the late nineteenth century for state purposes but eventually evolved into sites of negotiation between bureaucrats and ordinary citizens who use them for demonstrations, riots, and shelters, as well as recreation. Thomas Havens shows how revolutionary officials in the 1870s seized private properties and converted them into public parks for educating and managing citizens in the new emperor-sanctioned state. Rebuilding Tokyo and Yokohama after the earthquake and fires of 1923 spurred the spread of urban parklands both in the capital and other cities. According to Havens, the growth of suburbs, the national mobilization of World War II, and the post-1945 American occupation helped speed the creation of more urban parks, setting the stage for vast increases in public green spaces during Japan’s golden age of affluence from the 1960s through the 1980s. Since the 1990s the Japanese public has embraced a heightened ecological consciousness and become deeply involved in the design and management of both city and natural parks—realms once monopolized by government bureaucrats.
Landscape Theory
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302 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm
Milano : Skira ; New York : Distributed in North America by Rizzoli International Publications, 2007.
Adolf Loos : works and projects / Ralf Bock.
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302 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm
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Milano : Skira ; New York : Distributed in North America by Rizzoli International Publications, 2007.
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334 p., 57 plates included in pagination : ill. (some col.), facsims, maps (some col.), ports. ; 22 cm.
2010.
Retour au monolithique : Jacques-Antoine Dulaure (1755-1835) et la territorialisation de l'architecture primitive / Christina Contandriopoulos.
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334 p., 57 plates included in pagination : ill. (some col.), facsims, maps (some col.), ports. ; 22 cm.
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2010.
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This volume investigates impact of these vast industrial estates on landscape and society from various perspectives. It reveals the architectural and spatial, legal, economic, social, and environmental ramifications of the logistics system in this region and elsewhere. It examines the ensembles of windowless steel boxes on three scales: as an architectonic-landscape(...)
Steel cities: the architecture of logistics in Central and Eastern Europe
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This volume investigates impact of these vast industrial estates on landscape and society from various perspectives. It reveals the architectural and spatial, legal, economic, social, and environmental ramifications of the logistics system in this region and elsewhere. It examines the ensembles of windowless steel boxes on three scales: as an architectonic-landscape entity the size of a small town, as a network that reshapes the map of Europe so to define its own territoriality, and as part of the everyday life of the workers inside and the residents around them.
Urban Theory