Canadian Centre for Architecture

The site of political demonstrations, sporting events, and barbecues, and the object of loving, if not obsessive, care and attention, the lawn is also symbolically tied to our notions of community and civic responsibility, serving in the process as one of the foundations of democracy.

The American Lawn

Challenging the dominance of the visual in the urban environment, the exhibition catalogue Sense of the City proposes a re-thinking and re-presenting of the city, and offers a more complex analysis of the qualities, comforts, communication systems, and sensory dimensions of urban life. From darkness and night to urban soundscapes, to the urban air and climate, this book presents a new, "sensorial" approach to urbanism. In defense of public spaces in contemporary cities, writer Cedric Price has observed that "mental, physical, and sensory well-being is required." Included here is a rich collection of images on the different urban themes addressed in the exhibition, along with a series of insightful and critical essays. Contributors include Constance Classen, David Howes, Norman Pressman, Emily Thompson, and Mirko Zardini. Edited by Mirko Zardini. 200 illustrations

An Alternate Approach to Urbanism

Sense of the City

Greg Lynn

NSA Muscle

Francesco Garutti

This publication explores the controversial story of the planning and politics of a series of overpasses spanning the parkways of Long Island. These bridges were commissioned in the 1920s and 1930s by Robert Moses, and the story suggests that they were designed to prevent the passage of buses, thereby allowing only people who could afford to own a car to access Long Island’s leisure spaces. Moses’s possible devious intent and the transformation of the story in subsequent decades shaped a scholarly debate. The publication was produced to accompany the film Misleading Innocence (tracing what a bridge can do), which was developed by Francesco Garutti during his residency at the CCA as Emerging Curator 2013–2014. It presents objects and documents that Garutti encountered during his research, both deepening the analysis and widening the scope beyond the case of the bridges.

he story of the Robert Moses bridges over the Long Island parkways, and other explorations of unexpected political consequences of design

Can Design Be Devious?

Harris

Centre canadien d'architecture

From the day it opened in July 1955, in an event given live TV coverage, Disneyland has been a key symbol of contemporary American culture. It has been both celebrated and attacked as the ultimate embodiment of consumer society, a harbinger of shopping-mall culture, a symbol of American hegemony in entertainment, the epitome of fantasy, simulation, pastiche, and the blurring of distinctions between reality and mass-media imagery. Yet for all the power of Disneyland as metaphor, almost no one has discussed the making of this unique place, with its far-flung colonies in Florida, Japan, and France. Written to accompany an exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Designing Disney's Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance is the first book to look beyond the multiple myths of Disneyland. Uniting a roster of authors chosen from wide-ranging disciplines, this study is the first to examine the influence of Disneyland on both our built environment and our architectural imagination. Tracing the relationship of the Disney parks to their historical forbears, it charts Disneyland's evolution from one man's personal dream to a multinational enterprise, a process in which the Disney "magic" has moved ever closer to the real world. Editor Karal Ann Marling, Professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota, draws upon her pioneering work in the Disney archives to reconstruct and analyze the intentions and strategies behind the parks. She is joined by Marty Sklar, Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, historian Neil Harris, art historian Erika Doss, geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, critic Greil Marcus, and architect Frank Gehry to provide a unique perspective on one of the great post-war American icons.

Canadian Centre for Architecture

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