Making Public Interventions In Today’s Massive Cities

Saskia Sassen

Origin: Static Issue 04
Content: Text

Saskia Sassen’s work has been uncovering ground useful for diverse practices, and moreover for architecture. This essay, while acknowledging certain waking and growing trends in the use and creation of public space, opens wide grounds of possible action in the urban realm. The implication is that the transformation and making of public spaces depends on the common awareness of resources and on the understanding of the dialectics between global and local networks. The projects mentioned are effective in the way they point to novel ways to combat the unaccommodating propensity of the contemporary environment and uncover new ‘architectural’ means. More importantly it is clear that the transformation of the urban realm might be – and is already being – put into action by entities and individuals other than the commonly acknowledged. This transference of influence, some examples of which are being mapped and catalyzed by an increasing number of artworks, is very promising but nevertheless dependent on each citizen’s growing level of engagement.

Eliana Sousa Santos

- This essay was previously published in David Adjaye’s Making Public Buildings: Specificity Customization Imbrication, edited by Peter Allison, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.

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Contributor:

Saskia Sassen is the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, and Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. She has served as co-director of the Economy Section of the Global Chicago Project, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Urban Data Sets, a Member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and Chair of the newly formed Information Technology, International Cooperation and Global Security Committee of the SSRC.

Eliana Sousa Santos is a doctoral candidate at the London Consortium and an architect. Her research concerns the transatlantic voyage that the main concepts of the English landscape garden embarked upon during the 20th century.

Associated Links:

http://www.transgressivearchitecture.org
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.indymedia.org
http://www.raqsmediacollective.net
http://reinder.rustema.nl/dds/
http://www.transmediale.de
http://www.contrast.org/borders/
http://www.mongrelx.org
http://www.metamute.com
http://www.futuresonic.com
http://www.theaterderwelt.de