"Is the World Urban? Thinking Planetary Urbanism

Nature-Culture-Sustainability/Global Arts and Culture Lecture Series:

Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, The Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

April 3rd BEB 6.30pm

"Is the World Urban? Thinking Planetary Urbanism

Neil Brenner is one of the most cited urban theorists in the world and key point of reference now for contemporary architecture, design and urban planning.In this lecture, Brenner will explore some of the problems with the literature on the urban age and excavates Henri Lefebvre’s notion of generalised urbanisation for insights into the emergent planetary urban condition. He argues that the geographies of urbanization can no longer be conceptualized only with reference to cities, megacities or metropolitan regions, but today encompass diverse patterns and pathways of land-use intensification and infrastructural development across the planetary landscape, from Manhattan to the Matterhorn, from the Pearl River Delta to Mount Everest, from the Nile River valley to the Pacific Ocean. This variegated urban fabric must become a central focal point for new approaches to urban theory, strategies of collective intervention and design imaginaries.