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Essay: Keith Eggener

The Uses of Daylight

Earlier this year Keith Eggener assessed the career of the now forgotten early 20th-century Kansas City architect Louis Curtiss, and argued that Curtiss's obscurity has less to do with intrinsic merit than with the politics of professional reputation. Here — with an analysis of the Boley Building, which featured one of the first glass curtain walls in America — he makes good on his claim that Curtiss's legacy deserves new attention.

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Gallery: Zhang Xiao & Aaron Rothman

The Last Days of Kaixian

On November 4, 2008, water rose over Kaixian, China — the final chapter in a history that dated back two millennia. Located on the Yangtze River, 180 miles upstream from the Three Gorges Dam — the largest water control project on earth — Kaixian was the final town submerged by the dam’s reservoir. Zhang Xiao, a photographer then working for a newspaper in nearby Chongqing, documented the town’s final dismantling. We are pleased to present a portfolio of his images.

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Essay: An Xiao Mina

Art Village: A Year in Caochangdi

In January 2011 An Xiao Mina traveled from her native Los Angeles to the Beijing arts district of Caochangdi to work in the studio of artist Ai Weiwei. She arrived to find an uneasy place. Months earlier the residents — a mix of local and international artists and provincial migrants — had been notified by state authorities that Caochangdi was slated for demolition. Here Mina recounts a volatile but gratifying year spent "in a city that seemed to change with vertiginous speed."

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Poetry: Dolores Hayden

Lunch with Giambattista Nolli

Earlier this week we published Michael Ezban’s study of Monte Testaccio, the Roman landfill that has been, at various times, quarry, wine cellar, military bunker, festival site and inspiration for landscape architects. Today we present another source of inspiration: Giambattista Nolli’s map of Rome, engraved in 1748, with a poem by architect and urbanist Dolores Hayden.

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Peer Reviewed: Michael Ezban

The Trash Heap of History

The reuse of waste and remediation of landfills have inspired some of the most innovative contemporary landscape and urban design projects. Michael Ezban looks back two millennia and explores Monte Testaccio, the great garbage dump of imperial Rome. In this enduring landform — "a mountain of detritus in a city of storied hills" — he finds a dynamic precedent for landfill reclamation in our own eco-conscious era.

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Essay: Mark Feldman

Visualizing the Ends of Oil

For years visual artists have been documenting — critiquing — the environmental degradation of the planet. Mark Feldman looks closely at how the photographers Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan have struggled to visualize the consequences of oil, from extraction to use to waste. But what are the ultimate political or social effects? As Feldman asks: "To what degree can these photographs circulate as fine art images — making the usual circuit of galleries and museums — and at the same time be enlisted as evidence in environmental writing and politics?"

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Essay: Thomas Fisher

Design’s Invisible Century

The 20th century has been called the "invisible century" of science, with the ground-breaking discoveries of Einstein and Freud revolutionizing our understanding of particle phsyics and human psychology. The 21st century, argues Tom Fisher, is poised to become the invisible century of design, with designers playing ever more influential roles in the "seemingly invisible" sphere of "organizations and operations, policies and procedures, systems and infrastructures" — all of which, as Fisher points out, ultimately determine the health and prosperity of buildings, landscapes and cities.

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Essay: Josh Sides

20 Years Later: Legacies of the Los Angeles Riots

In March 1991 a bystander with a Sony Handycam videotaped a group of LAPD officers beating a motorist named Rodney King; a year later, when a suburban jury acquitted the police of charges of undue force, South Central L.A. erupted in riots. Josh Sides assesses the public and private efforts to repair the city; 20 years later South L.A. has changed remarkably — though some of the deepest changes have resulted less from official initiatives than from the "demographic dynamism" of the city.

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Essay: Aaron Paley & Amanda Berman

CicLAvia: Reimagining the Streets of Los Angeles

Can an ephemeral intervention inspire systemic change? Aaron Paley and Amanda Berman argue that the semi-annual CicLAvia — which bans car traffic from parts of Los Angeles — is prompting Angelenos to alter their mental maps and reimagine the urban future. As they write: "CicLAvia enables Angelenos to perceive the metropolis not in terms of time and aggravation — of the traffic-choked distance between freeway ramps — but instead in terms of spatial experience and free mobility."

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Featured Content: Waste

A. Bahamón & M. Camila Sanjinés
Rematerial: From Waste to Architecture

William H. Braham
The Temptations of Survivalism

Paho Mann & Nancy Levinson
The Art of Solid Waste

Event: Places Editors

Going Viral: AIANY Global Dialogues

A lecture and panel discussion on May 21 at the New York Center for Architecture will explore the impact that social media, technology and device culture are having on design process and practice. Places is among the journals featured in the accompanying exhibition, Voices Going Viral.

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Partner News: Arizona State University

Craig Barton Tapped as Director of The Design School

The former chair of the University of Virginia’s Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture heads to Arizona State University, where he will replace Darren Petrucci as head of The Design School on August 1.

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Partner News: MIT

MIT Establishes Center for Art, Science and Technology

The School of Architecture and Planning is a partner in the new center, which will support cross-disciplinary courses, research and exhibitions, and a major, biennial international symposium on art, science and technology.

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Partner News: UC Berkeley

After Three Gorges Dam: What Have We Learned?

A symposium hosted April 13–14 by the UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning will convene scientists, engineers and economists from China and other countries to present their evaluation of the impacts of the world's largest megaproject.

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Partner News: University of Michigan

Green Building and Climate Resilience Report Released

The report, by University of Michigan faculty and students and the U.S. Green Building Council, reviews recent research on the likely impacts of climate change at various scales and recommends strategies to increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of building projects.

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Partner News: Pratt Institute

Pratt Presents Exhibitions on Theoharis David

Two public exhibitions celebrate the 43-year career of the architect and educator Theoharis David. Architect Lebbeus Woods will introduce a lecture by David on March 1.

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Event: Places Editors

Displacements: Arquine Architecture and Design Conference

The 13th annual conference hosted by the art, architecture and design magazine Arquine will be held March 12-13 in Mexico City.

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Partner News: Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech Selected as National University Transportation Center

More than $7 million in federal, state and private grants will fund the U.S. Department of Transportation initiative, which brings together a consortium of universities in the Southeast to advance research and technology.

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The Space Between
Summer 1993

Kenmore Square: A Case Study [Portfolio: The Space Between]

Traces of Home

Exploring Prototypes [Portfolio: The Space Between]

Recommended Book

Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern: Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond
Mark Crinson & Claire Zimmerman, editors
An anthology that explores unexpected continuities between the postwar and postmodern eras, with essays on the work of Alice and Peter Smithson, James Stirling, Leon Krier, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Charles Jencks, among others. [NL]
Buy This Book >>
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