POSTOPOLIS: day 1

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[image from Storefront for Art and Architecture]

Engaging discussion on the role of the vernacular in contemporary architecture and considerations of public vs private space with an eye towards designing for negotiating flows within each… as 80s pop songs from the other side of this design hotel rooftop compete with Yo-Ichiro Hakomori’s voice, each occasionally interrupted by the blocky roar of news helicopters overhead.

Fritz Haeg chronicling the use of his geodesic dome home for an open-ended school. ‘Edible Estates’, we learn, began when he was looking at the 2004 US Presidential election map (blue edges, thick red center) and decided to do something in the center, in Kansas, that could work there and elsewhere. The lawn as a repressive space, a flatterer of architecture it frames. Talk of gardens.

Michael Dear on the Postborder City, fueled by personal vignettes. He drove 4000 miles, journeying along each side of the U.S./Mexico border. Dedication & long-term realness exposure. At some point Nguzu Nguzu arrives with stellar fish tacos. The conversation will have to continue from Dear’s book:

In Latin America, urbanism is also a rejection of discipline, a miracle of order in spite of everything, an uncertain combination of strength and fragility, eating itself from the moment of birth… The availability of physical space is declining because of the demographic explosion of people and poverty; in the social arena, the public and private are merging and, despite everything, they intensify the geography of exclusion and inclusion. Is there is a utopian sentiment, it is that of purchasing power…

… & lots more. come on up!

 

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