Art and Architecture: What Makes a Great City? | Alex Garvin, Regina Myer, Dan Biederman, Michael Kimmelman | Architectural Explorations in Books Series Event
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Find out what makes a great city—not a good city or a functional city but a great city. Join Alex Garvin, Regina Myer, and Dan Biederman, for a discussion with The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman about the attributes of great cities and what other cities can learn and replicate. A great city is not an exquisite, completed artifact but a dynamic, constantly changing place that residents and their leaders can reshape to satisfy their demands. The panelists discuss what people who shape cities can do to make a city great.
With What Makes a Great City, Alex Garvin discusses the history, demographic composition, politics, economy, topography, history, layout, architecture, and planning of great cities, but argues it is not about these aspects alone. Most importantly, it is about the interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities.
To open the book, Garvin explains that a great public realm attracts and retains the people who make a city great. He describes exactly what the expression the public realm means, its most important characteristics, as well as providing examples of when and how these characteristics work, or don’t.
An entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of how particular components of the public realm (squares in London, parks in Minneapolis, and streets in Madrid) shape people’s daily lives. He concludes with a look at how twenty-first century initiatives in Paris, Houston, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Toronto are making an already fine public realm even better – initiatives that demonstrate what other cities can do to improve.
Frequent streetcar and tram service going everywhere in the city, together with
computer-operated sensors regulating traffic flow on city streets and giving priority
to public vehicles, have made Zurich a uniquely pedestrian-friendly city where less than
26 percent of residents travel regularly by private automobile, motorcycle, or motorbike.
What Makes a Great City helps readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves.
The recreational opportunities on Piers 2 and 5 provide something for everybody.
Regina Myer is President of Brooklyn Bridge Park, overseeing all aspects of the Park, including design, construction, maintenance and operation. The 85-acre park stretches approximately 1.3 miles along the East River, and has transformed the formerly industrial Brooklyn waterfront into a civic space for all New Yorkers. Under her leadership, the Park has been the recipient of numerous awards from such organizations as the Municipal Art Society, the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Architects. Prior to Brooklyn Bridge Park, Regina Myer was the senior vice president for planning and design at the Hudson Yards Development Corporation, and the Brooklyn Borough Director for the New York City Planning Department, where she directed the comprehensive redevelopment for two miles of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg waterfront and the rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn.
Dan Biederman is the founder and President of the Bryant Park Corporation and the 34th Street Partnership. A pioneer in the field of privately-funded urban and public space management, Dan Biederman also co-founded Grand Central Partnership in 1984. Through his private consulting firm, BRV Corp., he has turned around neighborhoods and parks in Dallas, Pittsburgh, Newark, Seattle, Portland, Baltimore, Buffalo, and Atlanta.
Michael Kimmelman is an American author, critic, columnist and pianist. He is the architecture critic for The New York Times and has written on issues of public housing, public space, infrastructure, community development and social responsibility. In March, 2014, he was awarded the Brendan Gill Prize for his "insightful candor and continuous scrutiny of New York's architectural environment" that is "journalism at its finest."
In its eighth year Architectural Explorations in Books, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a series of engaging programs delving into the critical role that architecture publications play in the understanding of contemporary urban developments and structures. The events feature book presentations and discussions by acclaimed architects, critics, curators, designers, photographers and writers.
The event is free and advanced registration is recommended.
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