Search

Title:
Information exchange : how cities renew, rebuild, and remember

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$29.95
(available to order)

Summary:
Van Alen Institute mounted the exhibition "Renewing, Rebuilding, Remembering" to demonstrate how cities, after incomparable loss of people and places, find ways to plan, design, and reconstruct the life of the city. The book is both a catalogue and a special edition of our series of "Van Alen Reports," the publication both documents the exhibit and expands on it with personal essays, articles and interviews. The point of the exhibition was not to compare catastrophes, but to compare, contrast, and try to explicate and understand initiatives, projects, plans, and actions that took place after the bomb, the earthquake, the war. After that, what worked, what would they do differently, what mattered right away, what mattered for the long-term? In October, the Institute put out a call for ideas for the exhibit. Students, designers, planners, artists, professors, photographers, public officials and a wide range of respondents from around the world were generous in suggesting places, projects, issues, and designs that were telling for the future of New York. From this response and ongoing research, the Institute chose to focus on specific processes and projects in seven cities. In Beirut, a public art installation that progressed through the city was a first step in reclaiming its war-torn districts, and the Lebanese capital has continued not only with master plans and major new developments, but also with works such as the Garden of Forgiveness, grappling with a hard history to contemplate. In Berlin, a center for information about the city and its reconstruction rose above the ruins of the Berlin Wall, half a century after the city had been devastated and divided. In San Francisco, an earthquake left the elevated highway downtown in such precarious decision that the city decided to tear it down-and implement a long-held dream of reopening the city to the waterfront. In Kobe, where an earthquake resulted not only in billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure, but also in a terrible loss of life, architects responded with an outpouring of energy to survey the damage and construct innovative emergency housing, proving the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. In addition, they strove to understand the disaster, building a museum about, and at, the geological fault that brought down so much of their city. Manchester had a terrorist attack in the mid-1990s, and rebuilt its center city better than before, as well as setting up an institute for the study of cities around the world, to better understand that the life of the city and its public realm can not be taken for granted. So, too, did Oklahoma City, where a public process led to an international design competition for a memorial, and the city has rebuilt itself around it. Sarajevo, after years of civil war, pulled together its citizens through restoring the landmarks of their public life.

Title:
Open : new designs for public space

Actions:

• Buy book

Price:
$24.95
(available to order)

Summary:
"Open: New Designs for Public Space" puts forth the simple proposition that new public spaces need not be the banal leftovers of design neglect. "Open" showcases the best recent public projects from some of the world's most talented designers, including Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Craig Dykers, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Walter Hood, UN Studio, Norman Foster, Weiss/Manfredi, and Will Alsop. More than 300 images illustrate a range of projects from memorials to new types of urban plazas and parks. Essays by Raymond Gastil, Linda Pollak, and Zoë Ryan, argue that the most successful urban spaces are those that combine large-scale operations and small-scale experiences, major infrastructure with recreation and culture, and grand civic events with intimate daily interaction.