April 29, 1999

Peter Lang in his own words:

"The Last Yard" is a presentation of 3 graduate research students working on independent thesis with Peter Lang: Joanna Szymanska on the transference of the Jewish Ghetto in Siena Italy; Peteris Ratas on the multiple readings of place inside route 280; and Katryn Karrass on Radburn and the creation of the garden city. Each project illustrates an aspect of territorial research focusing on overlapping social and architectural conditions and their impact on the evolution of the contemporary landscape. I will introduce the presentation with a short discussion on memory and fantasy in the mediation of marginal landscapes. I am a member of "Stalker" laboratory, an international research group based in Rome investigating occulted patterns in peripheral development around cities. I had recently published an article in the Italian "Il Progetto." In April I will present a paper at the MIT Design Thinking Research Symposium on Brunelleschi and Alberti. I will be participating in a workshop at the University of Reggio Calabria on the straits of Messina and squatter settlements in May. I am currently Editor of Storefront Books.

A heightened perception of urban violence increasingly dominates public discourse, but, as recent events in Sarajevo and Los Angeles demonstrate, these crises continue without immanent resolution. The very definitions of the city and of violence are constantly being regefined: the site of the city shifts across real and imagined space; violence has been exposed outside the traditional arenas of social conflict. Mortal City probes the polemical nature of urban violence, presenting several different approaches to the subject, reflecting historical, geographical, and theoretical development in these fields.

Historically, uburbia has been defined in relation to the city. Today, however, the city is no longer the undisputed arbiter for civilization; suburbia has infiltrated urban culture worldwide, shaping both its aspirations and its fears. Beneath its advertised serenity, poetry and violence, romance and pornography, organic gardens and toxic wastes are all nestled into the naturalistic settings of the suburbs. What are the rituals and customs of the contemporary suburb? Is it possible to describe suburban culture without relying on typical urban comparisons? How is suburban culture changing as a result of being plugged into a global market of expanding proportions?

All images and illustrations were kindly furnished by Peter Lang.