In the 500 years since the publication of Thomas More's Utopia, the project of imagining an ideal society has emerged as simultaneously regenerative and devastating on multiple fronts: for the concept of the polity, for the composition of social fabrics, and for the formation of buildings, cities, and territories. By examining a series of sites - from the building envelope to the plantation, from infrastructural projects to global ecologies - this year's Cambridge Talks aims to provide a spectrum of cases that collectively approach utopia's modern guise.

Schedule

Thursday, April 14

3:00 pm
PhD Colloquium

Respondents:

Ana Miljački
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sonja Dümpelmann
Harvard University

Friday, April 15

9:30 am
Introduction
 

9:45 am
Panel: Embodied Utopia

Luis Casteñeda
Syracuse University
Joyce Chaplin
Harvard University
Erika Naginski
Harvard University

Respondent:

Catherine Ingraham
Pratt Institute

1:30 pm
Panel: Total Utopia

Daniel Barber
University of Pennsylvania
Sara Pritchard
Cornell University
Abby Spinak
Harvard University

Respondent:

John May
Harvard University
 

4:00 pm
Keynote Lecture

Damian White
Rhode Island School of Design

Discussants:

K. Michael Hays
Neil Brenner
Harvard University

Cambridge Talks X is generously supported by the Harvard GSD, the GSAS Graduate Student Council, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Cambridge Talks X has been organized by GSD PhD students - Aleksandr Bierig, Maria Atuesta, Manuel Lopez Segura, Tamer Elshayal, and Matthew Allen - and the GSD PhD Program.

Questions?

Please email cambridgetalks2016@gmail.com.

Cambridge
Talks
X
April 14-15, 2016
Piper Auditorium
Gund Hall
48 Quincy Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard Graduate School
of Design