Joan Busquets in collaboration with Felipe Correa
Exhibition: Cities: 10 Lines, Approaches to City and Open Territory Design
Where: Foro Ciudad de Santander | Palacio de Exposiciones | Santander, Spain
When: June 20th to July 13rd
What: Following the exhibition's debut at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in December 2005, Cities: 10 Lines, Approaches to City and Open Territory Design has continued its travel schedule, opening at the Foro Ciudad de Santander this June. Curated by Joan Busquets, Martin Bucksbaum Professor in Practice of Urban Planning and Design, in collaboration with Felipe Correa, Design Critic in Urban Design, the exhibition is the outcome of extensive research on salient lines of work in the contemporary city. The insights of Busquets and Correa draw on over two years of faculty research seminars that focused on the development of a pedagogic taxonomy to frame the methods and tools with which designers currently shape cities and open territories.
The exhibition's installment in Santander, sponsored by the Santander Municipality and the Universidad de Cantabria, will conclude in early July, at which time it will continue its tour through the major cities of Spain, visiting Madrid, Barcelona, and A Coruna. Thereafter, Cities: 10 Lines will open in Quito, Ecuador, at the Bien Panamericana de Arquitectura in November 2006.
In December, a "10 Lines" conference will be held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, marking the release of a companion catalogue that that will present each line of work in greater detail, as well as highlighting additional projects not included in the exhibition.
In early 2007, the Cities: 10 Lines exhibition is scheduled to arrive in China. In addition, a smaller version of the exhibition is scheduled to travel to different locations throughout the United States.
In developing the exhibition and the catalogue, Joan Busquets and Felipe Correa sought to present the significant shifts designers have made in their projection of the city. Over the past three decades, new techniques in working the built environment have been deployed in multiple settings, interacting with a wide array of cultures, scales and intensities. Furthermore, the notion that urban grounds can be successfully refurbished is gaining clout rapidly, while the innovative nature of these interventions is creating spaces of an unprecedented urban quality. The scope of Cities: 10 Lines focuses broadly on:
- new ways to organize infrastructure and programs
- the role of the designer as an agent within the broader public/private field
- new technological changes fueled by a post-industrial context
- new conceptions of operative contextualism
More specifically, the presentation focuses on an in-depth portrayal of the most relevant lines of work currently being deployed in the built environment. The initial taxonomy that will serve as a framework for the exhibition is as follows: 1. Synthetic Gestures, key buildings with urban synergies; 2. Multiplied Grounds, the large urban artifact as a driver; 3. Tactical Maneuvers, minimum critical mass as a driver; 4. Reconfigured Surfaces; the restructuring of fine-grain open space; 5. Piecemeal Aggregations, the urban fragment at the intermediate scale; 6. Traditional Views; 7. Recycling Territories, large landscapes and decentralization; 8. Core Retrofitting, the updating of historic cores; 9. Analog Compositions, rethinking the Master Plan and its Scales; 10. Speculative Procedures, experimental investigations in urbanism.
This investigation frames the role of the designer in the built environment as well as possible strategies and/or actions that can be taken upon encountering different projects and contexts. Furthermore, Cities: 10 Lines serves as an additional initiative to develop a stronger urban culture that is more attuned to a post-industrial condition. It acknowledges its inherent potential for unprecedented forms of urbanity. The exhibition documents the most significant, worldwide case studies of each approach and traces back to precedents and referents, establishing a theoretical framework and critical assessment of each line of work.
For additional information and images please contact Michael Rooney: mrooney@gsd.harvard.edu
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