Jilly Traganou

This book examines, through an interdisciplinary lens, the relationship between political dissent and processes of designing. In the past twenty years, theorists of social movements have noted a diversity of visual and performative manifestations taking place in protest, while the fields of design, broadly defined, have been characterized by a growing interest in activism. The book’s premise stems from the recognition that material engagement and artifacts have the capacity to articulate political arguments or establish positions of disagreement. Its contributors look at a wide array of material practices generated by both professional and nonprofessional design actors around the globe, exploring case studies that vary from street protests and encampments to design pedagogy and community-empowerment projects. For students and scholars of design studies, urbanism, visual culture, politics, and social movements, this book opens up new perspectives on design and its place in contemporary politics.

Spaces, Visuals, Materialities

Design and Political Dissent

Designing the Olympics claims that the Olympic Games provide opportunities to reflect on the relationship between design, national identity, and citizenship. The "Olympic design milieu" fans out from the construction of the Olympic city and the creation of emblems, mascots, and ceremonies, to the consumption, interpretation, and appropriation of Olympic artifacts from their conception to their afterlife. Besides products that try to achieve consensus and induce civic pride, the "Olympic design milieu" also includes processes that oppose the Olympics and their enforcement. The book examines the graphic design program for Tokyo 1964, architecture and urban plans for Athens 2004, brand design for London 2012, and practices of subversive appropriation and sociotechnical action in counter-Olympic movements since the 1960s. It explores how the Olympics shape the physical, legal and emotional contours of a host nation and its position in the world; how the Games are contested by a broader social spectrum within and beyond the nation; and how, throughout these encounters, design plays a crucial role. Recognizing the presence of multiple actors, the book investigates the potential of design in promoting equitable political participation in the Olympic context.

Representation, Participation, Contestation

Designing the Olympics

Jilly (Parsons The New School for Design Traganou, USA)

Offers a comparative study of representations of the Tôkaidô road, the most important route of Japan during the Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras.

Traveling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan

The Tōkaidō Road

Miodrag Mitrašinović

Travel, Space, Architecture defines a new theoretical territory in architectural and urban scholarship that frames the processes of spatial production through the notion of travel.The book presents seventeen key case studies that range from interrogations of architectural travel and notions of belonging and nationhood to challenging established geopolitical hierarchies.

Travel, Space, Architecture

The Tôkaidô Road offers a comparative study of the Tôkaidô road's representations during the Edo (1600-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) eras. Throughout the Edo era, the Tôkaidô highway was the most important route of Japan and transportation was confined to foot travel. In 1889, the Tôkaidô Railway was established, at first paralleling and eventually almost eliminating the use of the highway. During both periods, the Tôkaidô was a popular topic of representation and was depicted in a variety of visual and literary media. After the installation of the railway in the Meiji era, the Tôkaidô was presented as a landscape of progress, modernity and westernisation. Such representations were fundamental in shaping the Tôkaidô and the realm of travelling in the collective consciousness of the Japanese people.

Jilly Traganou

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