Last Night
Last Night
Last night, I got an email from Stephanie Pure, communications director for the Seattle chapter of the American Institute for Architects, telling me what she did last night.
It sounded awesome, especially the to-do urban art list. (If you find yourself out-and-about in the city, and it feels like a Cola "Last Night," email me, [email protected].)
Here it is:
Hey Josh,
Here's what I did tonight: I just came back from a UW lecture called "City in Five Acts: Interpreting Urban Experience." It's part of UW's NEXT CITY series on "sustainable urbanization" so I thought it was going to be about the usual walkable/livable sidewalk-cafe blah-blah (which seems hollow these days considering our transit situation, but anyway),
instead it was super-high-brow discussion on what the urban experience actually feels like through different art and media.
The speaker was Daniel Friedman, Dean of the College of Built Environments (yes, Sally Clark copied her committee name from them.) It was interesting to see him give a real talk, as I usually only see him presiding over receptions. Friedman described, in flourishy elegance, books and art like The Road, Gershwin, "Nighthawks ," and a French film called Playtime which I intend to see immediately. He also spent about 20 minutes talking about the Wire, which seemed to impact him more than all the other art put together.
However, none of that really mattered because he had me at this picture
right here. Go CITY!
Anyway, they gave out a recommended list movie/book/art list at the talk:
It sounded awesome, especially the to-do urban art list. (If you find yourself out-and-about in the city, and it feels like a Cola "Last Night," email me, [email protected].)
Here it is:
Hey Josh,
Here's what I did tonight: I just came back from a UW lecture called "City in Five Acts: Interpreting Urban Experience." It's part of UW's NEXT CITY series on "sustainable urbanization" so I thought it was going to be about the usual walkable/livable sidewalk-cafe blah-blah (which seems hollow these days considering our transit situation, but anyway),
instead it was super-high-brow discussion on what the urban experience actually feels like through different art and media.
The speaker was Daniel Friedman, Dean of the College of Built Environments (yes, Sally Clark copied her committee name from them.) It was interesting to see him give a real talk, as I usually only see him presiding over receptions. Friedman described, in flourishy elegance, books and art like The Road, Gershwin, "Nighthawks ," and a French film called Playtime which I intend to see immediately. He also spent about 20 minutes talking about the Wire, which seemed to impact him more than all the other art put together.
However, none of that really mattered because he had me at this picture
right here. Go CITY!
Anyway, they gave out a recommended list movie/book/art list at the talk:
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Karsten Harries, The Meaning of Modern Art
Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man
Richard Sennett, ed., Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities
Tiffany Potter and C.W. Marshall, eds., The Wire: Urban Decay and
American Television
Joseph Rykwert, The Idea of a Town
Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjik, eds., The Endless City
Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time
Mark Lamster, ed. Architecture and Film
Jacquest Tati, Playtime (DVD)
David Simon, et al., The Wire (5 season, 60 episode series DVD)
