RESIDENCY ARTISTS , 2015

Rural Communities Today Symposium. 

This residency consisted of a symposium with scholars on Cape Cod called Rural Communities Today, which took place in the Chermayeff Studio, followed by a public forum at the Wellfleet Library. This two-day gathering of eminent thinkers in the fields of design and planning aspired to further the tradition of conversations about the built environment that took place on the Outer Cape in the mid-twentieth century, at the Chermayeff House. This public event was a panel discussion including local residents and officials discussing questions of land use, housing, infrastructure and ecology in an attempt to understand the existing conditions and opportunities for development in rural settlements today. 

Part two of the symposium was titled In the Shadow of the Megacity, Urbanization and Beyond, and took place at The Cooper Union in New York City, continuing the conversation and raising questions concerning the agency of architecture and design in relation to the processes of urbanization.  

The curators were architect and an architectural historian Tulay Atak and Teddy Kofman, an architect based in New York City.

The participants were:

Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Alexander D’Hooghe, Associate professor with tenure at MIT and founding partner of the ‘Organization for Permanent Modernity.

Susannah C. Drake, Founding principal of Dlandstudio architecture + landscape architecture pllc.

Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University.

Robert Goodman, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Design at Hampshire College.

Jaime Stein, Academic, Sustainability Consultant and Urban Researcher.

Dietmar Offenhuber, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in the departments of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Art + Design.

George Price, Superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore.

Mark Adams Artist and Geographic Information Specialist at Cape Cod National Seashore.

For more information on the event and a follow-up event, go to 

http://www.intheshadowofthemegacity.blogspot.com/

Introduction

Urbanization is more than the growth and physical expansion of cities. It is a process that transforms territories, changes existing reciprocities, and establishes new relationships between different places. In the Shadow of the Megacity will address the wider impact of urbanization, both within and beyond the city, to trace the present contours of the urban and imagine its future.

In the Shadow of the Megacity was a two-part symposium. We began our conversation with an event titled Rural Settlements Today. This two-day gathering took place in Wellfleet and aspired to further the tradition of conversations and intellectual gatherings that took place on the Outer Cape in the mid-twentieth century. Leading scholars and professionals, together with local officials, discussed questions of land use, housing, infrastructure and ecology to understand the existing conditions and opportunities for development in rural settlements today.

Our second event, Urbanization and Beyond, took place at The Cooper Union in New York City. We continued the conversation and raised questions concerning the agency of architecture and design in relation to the processes of urbanization.  

The symposium was hosted and supported by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust as part of its annual residency program and by The Cooper Union School of Architecture and Institute of Sustainable Design.