..no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne (1572-1631)
The Manhattan Skyline with the World Board of Trade Buildings, destroyed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001
Week of October 9, 2001
Monday, October 8, 2001 No Classes: The Columbus Day Holiday Observed
Tuesday, October 9, 2001.THE MONDAY SCHEDULE OBSERVED.
Read, in Girouard,
Chapter 15: America and the Birth of the Skyscraper pp. 301 - 324
There are several points we'll want to discuss. First we'll need to think about what enables skyscrapers from a technological point of view. Here, we're concerned not only with the technology of building, but also with the impact of emerging technologies (the plural is deliberate) which enhance opportunities for urbanism at this scale. Second, we'll need to think about factors (again, the plural is deliberate) which make skyscrapers desirable as well as possible. Just because one can do something is no guarantee that one will do something. Finally we'll need to think about the rate of change in the city of the skyscraper era. What does this do to a sense of rootedness and permanence? To fully appreciate this, you'll need to watch picture captions, which on occasion give some sense of how long the building endured between construction and demolition.
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Read, in Girouard,
Chapter 16: Cities Round the World, pp. 325 - 342
Chapter 17: Babylon or Jerusalem, pp. 343 - 375
Epilogue pp. 377 - 382
With these chapters we conclude our brief survey of what constitutes a city and urbanism. The first of these looks to ways in which urban areas in different countries imitate each other in certain ways, yet retain individual character in others. The second hearkens back to something I discussed in the first week of the semester, a cultural ambivalence about cities. Are they "heavenly" or "hellish" places? As we see, Americans are not the only ones to have conflicting attitudes about urban life.
In the Epilogue Girouard looks into his crystal ball and predicts something of the city's future. He also speaks to his own attitudes towards urban living.
Friday, October 12
It will be our privilege to welcome a group of ten international students visiting with us this day. I have asked them to come to us and share their perceptions about their particular cities and how they differ from American cities as they have encountered them. I'm also asking them to tell us little about whether they think of cities as desirable or undesirable environments, and why. Here's a list of the places they represent:
Pusan, Korea
Osaka, Japan
Port Au Prince, Haiti
Tokyo, Japan
Taipei, Taiwan
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Seoul, Korea
Jidda, Saudi Arabia
Bo-Ryng, Korea
I know you'll make them welcome and come primed with questions and observations of your own.
