Cambridge Talks VII: Architecture and the Street

Cambridge Talks VII: Architecture and the Street
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Conference Date: 2013-03-29
Date Submitted: 2013-03-04
Announcement ID: 201953

The PhD program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design is
pleased to invite you to the seventh annual Cambridge Talks
conference, which will take place on FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013,
9:00-4:30, in Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall. This year's conference,
entitled "Architecture and the Street" (see description below), will
feature talks by:
CESARE BIRIGNANI (Harvard); KELLER EASTERLING (Yale); GABRIELLE
ESPERDY (NJIT); CHRISTOPHER HEUER (Princeton); MATTHEW JESSE JACKSON
(Chicago); ATEYA KHORAKIWALA (Harvard); MARIANA MOGILEVICH (NYU); ERIC
MUMFORD (WashU); KATHERINE RINNE (California College of the Arts);
RICHARD WITTMAN (UC Santa Barbara)

EVENT DESCRIPTION:
No building is an island – and in the context of the city,
architecture takes shape in relation to the street. Arcades and façade
treatments, lighting fixtures and shop windows, setback and building
height restrictions: each of these mediate how buildings interact with
streets as spaces of visual display and public sociability. More
recently, the construction of flyovers and underground transport
systems has transformed streets into ever-more complex, multi-layered
spatial armatures for architectural intervention. Streets serve as the
liminal zones by which architectural form and symbolism meet with the
contingencies of urban life.

CAMBRIDGE TALKS VII seeks to bring fresh historical themes and tools
to bear on the problem of Architecture and the Street. New research
promises to enrich and challenge perspectives pioneered by Spiro
Kostof, Jane Jacobs, and William H. Whyte. How does the
infrastructural function of streets as circulation (of people, goods,
water, and waste) press against the static character of architecture?
How do streets serve as the spatial framework for social control,
ceremony, procession, and protest? How might we theorize and
historicize modern streets as sites of cultural memory and nostalgia?
And above all, what are the effects of such social, political, and
technological forces on architectural form?

Cambridge Talks is generously supported by the Harvard University
Graduate School of Design, the Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs & the GSAS Graduate Student Council.

The event is free and open to the public.


 Conference organizers:

MORGAN NG
Harvard University
morganng_AT_fas.harvard.edu

JASON NGUYEN
Harvard University
jenguyen_AT_fas.harvard.edu
Email: morganng@fas.harvard.edu
Visit the website at http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cambridgetalks2013