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Journal
Questions for Weeks 1 & 2
Week
1
Journal—Fri., Jan. 21—Thinking About Cities
Mumford, “What Is a City?”
Mohl, “New Perspectives on American Urban History”
Project for Public Spaces
1.
How did Lewis Mumford define cities? What was most important to him in
this definition?
2.
How, according to Mohl, did urban history get started? When? What were
the early urban historians interested in knowing about cities? How and
why did they move in new directions in their scholarship?
3.
On the Project for Public Spaces website, click on any of the 6 color-coded
categories at left: Streets, Markets, Parks, Buildings, Neighborhoods
& Districts, Hall of Shame. In the page that comes up next, notice
in the light blue column on the right the following: “What makes
a successful place?” Click on it and read that section.
• What are the major things that Project for Public Spaces finds
important in making a successful urban place?
Now choose an example of whichever category you’ve chosen (i.e.
7th Avenue in Brooklyn).
• Why is this considered a good place?
Finally, can you think of a similar area in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton
area?
• How does it compare with the example you looked at?
IMPORTANT: When you write your initial “Landscape Essay” for
the Euclid Corridor Project, I strongly recommend that you take into consideration
some of the questions raised in “What makes a successful place?”
This will help you think of how to write about the sites you’re
examining.
Week 2
Journal—Mon., Jan. 24—Reading the Urban Landscape
Brand, How Buildings Learn
1.
On page 5 Brand writes that “Cities devour buildings.” What
does he mean? (Hint: Look in chapter 6 for more.)
2.
In chapter 2 Brand writes about the “layers” of buildings.
How does each of these layers relate to how the building adapts or changes?
3.
Brand discusses “Low Road” and “High Road” buildings
in chapters 3-4. What does he mean by these types? How easily do these
two types of buildings adapt to change? Try to identify several examples
of each type of building in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area.
4.
Why does Brand think that most buildings do not adapt very easily to change
over time? What role might architects play in limiting the adaptability
of buildings? (See chapter 5.)
5.
How are buildings’ “lives” related to the real-estate
market? How are they related to zoning? What promotes rapid change in
the “built environment” (meaning the physical layout of buildings)
and what promotes more gradual change?
6.
Why do we care about the “lives” of buildings anyway? What
can we learn by studying the changes in buildings over a number of years?
If you were trying to discover these changes, how might you go about it?
Journal—Wed.,
Jan. 26—Memory and Urban History
Hayden, “Place Memory and Urban Preservation”
G & M: Lewis, “Connecting Memory, Self, and the Power of Place”
1. Hayden discusses "urban preservation." How does she say that
preservation relates to "urban landscape history?" (Hint: What
exactly is she talking about preserving? Is it just the physical buildings
in which something "important" happened? Or is it more than
that? What is the real goal?)
2. Hayden uses the examples of the "New Charleston" map and
Cincinnati's "flying pigs" to illustrate how public art can
tell the stories of the urban past. What is the advantage of these newer
kinds of public art over the so-called old public art (i.e. statues of
famous political and military figures)? (Hint: Be sure you understand
what public art meant a century ago and what it means today.)
3. Lewis uses the example of "Susan J.," an African American
woman who lived in Norfolk, Virginia, in the 1930s, to make a point about
the nature of memory and its relationship to place. What is Lewis trying
to say? How does he say that African American memories of place are formed?
4. What do you think urban historians should conclude about the importance
of "place" in cities after reading Hayden and Lewis? (Hint:
Consider Hayden's contention that place memory is "the stabilizing
persistence of place as a container of experiences." Do you see any
link to Lewis Mumford's suggestion that the city is a social theater?)
No
Journal—Fri., Jan. 28—Introduction to Euclid Corridor Project
No reading
Week
3
See link on schedule above Week 3 readings, or click
here.
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