ENV Bookshelf

What We’ve Been READINGANDWRITING

SHELF

THEGLOBALIZATIONOFTHEARTMARKET

Over the summer, art department Professor Alison Pearlman worked with ENV librarian Kai Smith to get a book on the University Library bookshelf, and for a good reason: “If you want to learn how the market for contemporary art—including the gray and the black—really works (A hint for students who will take the art history seminar ART 418 in winter 2018, the theme of which is Art and Consumer Culture Since 1960.), read John Zarobell’s ‘Art and the Global Economy’ (University of California Press, 2017),” Pearlman said.

LIFEDEATHANDCITIES

Natasha Kumar, a senior majoring in urban and regional planning, has cities on her mind. In between her duties as vice president of the ENV Council and preparing for her final academic year, she managed to fit in readings that le an impression. “The Death and Life of American Cities” (Random House, 1961). Considered a classic in urban planning policy, journalist/activist Jane Jacobs criticized the failures of urban renewal initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, arguing that the decline in city neighborhoods is aributed to the short-sightedness of planners and development financiers, and the dangers of too much development money and not enough understanding of the complexities of neighborhoods. “How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood” (Nation Books, 2017). Journalist Peter Moskowitz investigates the forces and process behind gentrification, and the dismantling of neighborhoods and uneven treatment of poor and affluent communities. The investment and decisions of large corporations and developers could be a boon to struggling communities, but when city leaders rely on private-sector funds, those who live and work in these neighborhoods oen lose the their city hall advocates along the way. “The Image of the City” (MIT Press, 1960). Urban planner Kevin Lynch, a student of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, parses how peoples’ perceptions of their own cities lead to “mental mapping,” a form of interaction between the physical spaces of a city and the ways in which its dwellers interact with and within it. Another essential primer for planners and architects, Lynch’s classic posited that mental maps are valuable to planners in the building and rebuilding of cities. “Great Streets” (MIT Press, 1993). Allan B. Jacobs, former San Francisco planning director and a city and regional planning professor emeritus at UC Berkeley asks: “What are the characteristics that make the world’s best streets great?” A study of more than 50 great and once-great streets from around the world reveals that practical design and strategies go a really, really long way. He discusses the community-building power of streets in 15 essays that examine thoroughfares ranging from medieval streets in Rome and dreamy Parisian boulevards to the tree-lined avenues in suburban America, all arranged by type and supplemented with maps and visual design details that infer the pulses of urban living as revealed by their street paerns.

OURRESTLESSSPECIES

I just finished reading Yuval Noah Harari’s excellent book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” (HarperCollins, 2015) and have embarked on a read of his follow-up work, “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” (HarperCollins, 2017). Together, these books lay out a clear overview of where our restless species is in its development and the astonishing places we are likely to go. Beginning with the formation of the first human cultures 70,000 years ago, the author takes us on a satellite-level journey through our expanding presence and power on Earth. Then, in “Homo Deus,” he goes on to present how we are in the process of directing our future evolution in ways that are likely to change both who and what we are. As a practicing architect, I find Harari’s discussions of human evolution and purpose to be a rich framework for reconsidering what I know of architectural history. Furthermore, his well-reasoned extrapolations of current trends in science and technology promote deep thinking about where our design professions are headed. I’m confident that anyone curious about our cultural production and values will find these books well worth reading. — Craig Jameson (’84, architecture), principal/co-founder of Parallax Associates, Architecture and Planning, Culver City