The Suddenly show - Suddenly.org, themed on landscape, settlement and social forces closes this week. The last events are interactive.
October 2 Nashville as Urban Metaphor
In Robert Altman's 1975 film Nashville (158 minutes), an ensemble cast of seemingly unrelated individuals cross paths and dialog building toward an unexpected ending. Just like cities. Art historian James Glisson believes the film depicts a certain desperate ennui occasioned by suburban landscape: “Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’ (1975) is a film whose sprawling narrative structure reflects the equally sprawling fabric of the automobile-dominated, postwar boom town in which it takes place. The odd segues with scenes passing like batons from one character to another often depend on the medium of traffic, whether as traffic jams or impromptu roadside meetings. Down to the film’s floating camerawork that captures actors from awkward viewpoints, it is a film in which nothing settles and its narrative momentum, like so much rubbernecked traffic, has a stop-and-go quality.” — James Glisson, “Photographing Sprawl,” Afterimage, January, 2008. (Maybe he should show Timecode)
After showing the film, everyone is invited to a drunken discourse, I mean to discuss and debate the thesis.
In the Chapel (big room, old building) at Milepost 5 www.milepostfive.com 900 NE 81st (go by MAX) 7PM Free
October 3 Indigenous and Modern Urban Patterns : Two Talks
At 3PM Thomas Sieverts gives an architecture focused talk. (See more about him next in the Back Room)
At 5PM a panel: Thomas Sieverts, University of British Columbia historian Coll Thrush (author of Native Seattle), PSU archaeologist Kenneth M. Ames (co-author of Peoples of the Northwest Coast), anthropologist Melissa Darby, and University of Puget Sound historian Douglas Sackman, discuss indigenous settlement before cities. Did it influence city patterns later?
Both in the UO White Stag building, Events Room (main floor) 70 NW Couch Free
October 4 Back Room Dinner and Discussion at a Parking Lot in Beaverton
The Back Room series of smart dinners have been noted in this blog before. They have been in special and varied locales drawing a salon of special and varied participants.
Tonight it is in an abandoned parking lot in Beaverton.
Thomas Sieverts meets Aaron Betsky. Sieverts was an architect of the revitalization of Germany's rust belt along the Ruhr River. The resulting web of small cities, connected by transit and webbed with greenspace, replaced the ghosts of mines, blast furnaces and contaminated soil. The plan area surrounding the Emscher River was so polluted that the river itself required its own treatment plant before draining into the Ruhr.
Now the area, of similar size to the Willamette Valley, is home to 5 million.
Aaron Betsky is director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and director of the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture. He has served as director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute and curator of architecture and design at SFMOMA.
A tasty Thai dinner and drinks with talks and an engaging audience is yours for $50. Info at the Back Room website.
October 5 Can Art and Writing Shape the City?
If the pen is mightier than the sword, is it mightier than the backhoe? Thomas Sieverts, artist Fritz Haeg, writer Lisa Robertson, curator Stephanie Snyder, and writer Matthew Stadler discuss it with you outside on Reed campus. Check the Suddenly.org website for details. 2PM Free
October 6 Discusion - Can policy liberate design, is it the reverse or are they orthogonal?
Thomas Sieverts, urban designer; Brad Cloepfil, architect and Reed Kroloff, director of Cranbrook take on the topic. Thomas Sieverts believes ”shaping of the landscape where we live can no longer be achieved by the traditional resources of town planning, urban design, and architecture. New ways must be explored, which are as yet unclear.” Brad may have some thoughts as a recent project mired for a time in a preservationist swamp, only to be dissed by reviewers on its completion. (needlessly in my opinion) Personally I believe there is a happy medium but policy and design have different time cycles and information flows.
At PNCA Swiggert Commons, Corner NW 13th and Johnson 6:30PM Free
