Calendar of Events
Fri 05.15.2009
The Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures Exhibition Opening
When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM FRIDAY, MAY 15
Where: At The Center
What is infrastructure? For much of the twentieth century, the answer to this question was guided by the ideology of functionalist urbanism, a school of thought that said that all healthy cities served four major needs - work, housing, recreation, and transportation. Today, we no longer take this view for granted, for it is a perspective that makes no provisions for community, identity, or history. At the same time, we still lack an alternative model for visualizing the city that can deal adequately with the public health and quality-of-life issues that the early functionalists sought to address. Our capacity to balance urban development with ecological imperatives and social needs has only worsened in recent decades, and this exhibition asks whether the trend can be reversed.
Specifically, this show documents a series of contemporary experiments in planning, architecture, and design that seek to treat the city and its environment in holistic terms, as a complex social, political, and ecological matrix.
This exhibition makes that case that infrastructure cannot be divorced from the structure of democracy and from the environment at large. The contributors highlight the important role that community, communication, participation, and knowledge sharing play in cities.
Exhibition and related programs organized by AIA New York in partnership with Architecture for Humanity New York (AFHny) , The Austrian Cultural Forum, and the American Institute for Graphic Arts New York (AIGA NY).
Curator: Nader Vossoughian
Exhibition Design: Project Projects
This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the following sponsors:
Underwriter: Center for Architecture Foundation
Lead Sponsor: The Austrian Cultural Forum
Supporter: Consulate General of The Netherlands
Friend: Times Square Alliance
