Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Center for Alternative Futures
<<History of the Future>>
COLLOQUIUM
Organized by Timothy Hyde and Hashim Sarkis
May 11 & 12, 2009,
Stubbins Room, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
>> May 11 >>
6:30 PM Opening Remarks: Hashim Sarkis and Timothy Hyde
6:45 PM Keynote Address: Svetlana Boym
>> May 12 >>
9:00 AM On Utopia: Timothy Hyde; Respondents: Daniel Abramson, John McMorrough, Michael Meredith
10:00 AM On the City: Eve Blau; Respondents: Alexander d’Hooghe, Charles Maier, Jesse Shapins
11:00 AM On the Avant-Garde: Michael Hays; Respondents: Scott Cohen, Mark Jarzombek, Claire Zimmerman
2:00 PM On Technology: Antoine Picon; Respondents: Wes Jones, Reinhold Martin, Neri Oxman
3:00 PM On Ecology: Sanford Kwinter; Respondents: Sheila Jasanoff, Panayiota Pyla, Chris Reed
4:00 PM On Development: Hashim Sarkis; Respondents: Ijlal Muzaffar, Panayiota Pyla, Brent Ryan
5:00 PM Concluding Panel: moderated by Gwendolyn Wright
<< The colloquium examines how designers and planners have historically used their projective capacities to imagine better futures. These historical inquiries are driven by new challenges. Whether confronting an increasing pressure to respond positively to global disasters such as global warming, underdevelopment, and economic recession, or capitalizing on global achievements such as technological advancement, social freedoms, and bio-political knowledge, architects and planners have been compelled to assume a more speculative posture and to lead in imagining better futures.
<< The colloquium aims to historically trace some of these contemporary themes and the means by which architects and planners have responded to them. For that, participants will look at the instrumental role that utopian and dystopian narratives play in propelling projective thinking. They will also ask questions about technological determinism and put into historical perspective the ecological and the developmental crises and the respective design and planning responses. The colloquium will interrogate the role of the avant-garde and its seeming monopoly of the speculative platform in design. It will also examine the ways in which the city has often provided the fertile grounds for the imagination of the future.
<< The colloquium is one of a series of research initiatives that the GSD has recently launched about alternative futures. These initiatives build on the intellectual and creative resources of the GSD to respond to the challenges of projective thinking. They focus on imagining the ways in which technology and the media impact the shape of future cities and buildings. They also highlight questions about environmental change and the role that architecture and planning can play in redressing ecological problems. In so doing, they also prepare students to become leaders in speculative thinking. Through these initiatives, the GSD aspires to build a truly multi-disciplinary platform that reaches out to the rest of the university to help mobilize the creative dimension of the different schools at Harvard and their abilities to imagine better futures and better living and workplaces, schools, hospitals, infrastructures, and environments. >>
Click here for the colloquium poster.