Among Metropolis magazine’s Fall 2016 roundup of 37 “interest-piquing titles” are three books published by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, each representing different spokes of the GSD’s expanding publications program.
The Generic Sublime (Oct. 2016), edited by Ciro Najle and copublished with Actar Publishers, explores how a contemporary notion of the sublime emerges out of generic large-scale typologies. Various contributors consider the model of the skyscraper, once considered exploratory, taken to new proportions to reimagine its possibilities for a quasi-utopian, post-urban development.
Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City in China (July 2016), edited by associate professor in practice of urban design Christopher Lee, focuses on the challenges posed by a current phenomenon in China: the “developmental city,” a type of city conceived and built for excessive profit, which has emerged as a dominant model of development across vast territories of the nation. Common Frameworks is part of the Harvard Design Studies series, produced in close collaboration with GSD faculty and doctoral students.
Lastly, The Incidents: Abstract from the Concrete (Oct. 2016) presents a March 2016 lecture by geographer David Harvey, who was the 2015–2016 Senior Loeb Scholar at the GSD. Harvey’s work is distinguished by the way he has brought Marxism together with geography with productive results for each discipline. Abstract from the Concrete is the third member of The Incidents series, which the GSD copublishes with Sternberg Press.
View a complete listing of the GSD’s recent publications here, including Harvard Design Magazine, and visit the full Metropolis feature here.