The Cities of Walter Benjamin

Patrick Healy, DSD Series Publication, 010 Publishers, forthcoming.

Benjamin’s writings on cities throughout his life culminated in his 13 year research project on Paris Capital of the 19th Century. This study traces the autobiographical and contextual relations of Benjamin to the cities about which he wrote: Moscow, Naples, Marseilles, Berlin and Paris and connects his early work on German Tragic Drama with his Reading of the 19th century Paris. It gives a full analysis of his work on the city of Paris and his arguments about the relation of photography, cinema, space and new technologies and material inventions for the phantasmagoric development of future urbanisms. It contains a full bibliography and new analysis of the writing of Berlin in his work, and also of his radio talks to children in relation to a dialectical materialist interpretation of the city.

 

[Based on the cover design of Oran Hoffmann]

On Aristotle's Conception of Place, Henri Bergson

Translated by D. Hauptmann & P. Healy, DSD Publication Series, forthcoming.

Introduction I, ‘Bergson’s contribution to Aristotle Studies’, by P. Healy, introduction II. ‘On Bergson’s Notion of Space’, by D. Hauptmann

 

This publication provides the a definitive English translation of Henri Bergson’s 1889 Latin thesis, eH

Quid Aristoteles De Loco Senserit. The publication of Bergson’s thesis work on Aristotle’s sense of place will constitute a valuable addition to the growing scholarship on the work of Bergson.  Furthermore, Benjamin Morison has recently argued the significance of the work to Aristotelian studies in a monograph entitled On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place (Oxford Aristotle Studies, 2002). From the point of view of Bergson studies, this thesis - published in Latin and with Greek footnotes - is only available with difficulty, and although a French and English version of the main body of the text has been made, no complete translation exists to this date. Bergson’s contribution to Aristotle studies will be addressed in an extensive introduction by P. Healy.  Primary interest in Bergson scholarship has previously revolved around his most notable contribution to the philosophical discourse on Time, or in Bergsonian terms, on Duration (Durée), while his thesis on Aristotle addresses itself to the concept of place with little direct attention paid to his discourse on time. Consequently, the significance of Bergson’s thinking on Space is yet to be broadly considered. The relevance of this omission will be addressed in D. Hauptmann’s introduction.

COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE - FROM BIO-POLITICS TO NOO-POLITICS

Edited by: Deborah Hauptmann and Warren Neidich , 010 Publishers, 2010

Architecture & Mind in the Age of Communication & Information

Delft School of Design Series on Architecture and Urbanism

COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE addresses the question of how evolving modalities from bio-politics to noo-politics might be mapped upon the city under contemporary conditions of urbanization and globalization. This volume is motivated by theories such as ‘cognitive capitalism' and concepts such as ‘neural plasticity' - the former indicating the mutation of labor and capital vis-à-vis the apparatuses of production within the confines of neo-liberal economies and the latter the idea of mutability, transformation and the inherent potential for change within the spheres of imagination and ideology. Noo-politics, most broadly understood as a power exerted over the life of the mind, re-configuring perception, memory and attention, also implicates potential ways and means by which the neurobiological architecture is undergoing processes of evolution and reconfiguration. This volume shows how architecture and urban processes, procedures and products commingle to form complex systems, which, in the end, help produce novel forms of networks that empower the imagination and constitute the cultural landscape.

Cognitive Architecture rethinks the relations between form and forms of communication, which, in contemporary culture, call for a new logic of representation. Moreover, it examines the manner in which information, with its non-hierarchical and distributed format, recursive looping and self-reflexivity, is contributing both to the sculpting of brain and production of mind. Architecture and urbanism inhabit the same spaces and temporalities that characterize these new modes of relations; their presence also possesses the potential to bend and contort the very systems in which they operate. This volume brings together renowned specialists in the areas of political and aesthetic philosophy, neuroscience, socio-cultural and architecture theory, visual and spatial theorists and practitioners, and architects; the contributions elucidate original ideas for thinking the city as a framework for possible gestations of noo-politics.

Contributors include, among others:
Maurizio Lazzarato, John Rajchman, Sanford Kwinter, Sven-Olav Wallenstein, Keller Easterling, Tony Vidler, M. Christine Boyer, Scott Lash & Celia Lury, Elie During, Gabriel Rockhill, Boris Groys, Ina Blom, Lisa Blackman, Bruce Wexler, Yann Boutang, Charles Wolfe, John Protevi; and architects: Philippe Raum, Andreas Angelidakis, Markus Meissen, Jesse Reiser and Francois Roche.

 

Urban Asymmetries: Studies and Projects on Neoliberal Urbanization

Edited by Tahl Kaminer, Miguel Robles-Dúran, Heidi Sohn, 010 Publishers, 2010

The onset of the current global economic crisis provides the perfect backdrop for reviewing the dire consequences that neoliberal urban policies have had upon the city, and for discussing possible alternatives to market-driven development. In this light Urban Asymmetries centres on the contradictions of uneven urban development as a means of providing both a substantial critique of the current urban condition and a discussion of necessary counter practices, policies and strategies for designing in such environments, and inferring that social betterment within the city is possible by strategic use of the tools available to the urbanist and to the architect. The book aims to disprove some of the prevailing disciplinary discourses in architecture and urbanism which see the city as 'a given' rather than as an evolving socio-historic phenomenon, and intends to challenge the ubiquitous understanding of architecture as devoid of any social transformative power.

Asymmetrical Development South Africa

Editors: A Graafland, I Low & G Bruyns, 010 Publishers, Forthcoming 2010

As a reflection on the African Perspectives Africains conference, held in Delft 2007, this volume of the series merges within the transforming South African context in an attempt to unlocking specific debates around/regarding relevant South African topics and its highly specific built landscapes.

Building on the framework of our Urban Development stall at the African Perspectives Conference, the topics within this volume address issues as [1] Architectural and Urban Education as a form of Interdisciplinary Modes, [2] Design and Architectural practices and finally [3] Inequality.

In addition to the conference participants, contributors where sourced from a variety of both academic and practice backgrounds, sharing observations, issues and key questions concerned with the present South African debate. Additional input has been gathered from other international and interested parties in order to deliver as a diverse field as possible and affording a critical overview of this condition.

Secured contributors are: Arie Graafland, Iain Low, Hanna Le Roux, Finzi Saidi, Lesley Lokko, Alta Steenkamp, Mphethi Morojele, Edgar Pieterse, AbdouMaliq Simone, Johan Lagae, M Christine Boyer, Gerhard Bruyns and Ena Jansen.