PAST TALKS 2025
29 April 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CEST
City in the Face of Urban Scarcity: Navigating Urban Form and Architectural Responses to Resource Challenges in Tirana (1995-2010)
ANTEA LEKA
Technical University of Munich
Respondent: Saimir Kristo, Barleti University
Pyramid of Tirana. Source: Elie Gardner for The New York Times.
Current challenges such as rapid urbanization, resource depletion, and socio-economicinequalities are pressuring cities to rethink their development strategies and administrative approaches. The research project explores the future of urban transitions with a focus on scarcity, analyzing its impact on spatial development in European cities. The main goal is to assess administration policies, planning strategies, and spatial development from 1995 to 2020 through the lens of scarcity. The study considers political, economic, demographic, and social factors aswell as community engagement. It is divided into three main parts: understanding the concept ofurban scarcity, case studies, and recommendations.
A critical dimension of this research is its relation to environmental justice, particularly how scarcity exacerbates inequities in urban environments. Scarcity disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, leading to unequal access to resources such as water, green spaces, and housing. This imbalance reinforces socio-economic inequalities, posing ethical and governance challenges for cities.
The case of Tirana, Albania, and its latest developments offers a unique perspective within this study. Rapid urbanization and unregulated development in Tirana, especially after the fall of communism, have created deep-seated spatial inequalities. Informal settlements on the city's periphery, lack of green infrastructure, and uneven access to basic services like water and waste management illustrate how scarcity-driven urban transitions can undermine environmental justice. At the same time, recent urban regeneration projects, such as the transformation of Skanderbeg Square, show the city's efforts toward addressing these inequalities, though theirimpact remains uneven across socio-economic groups.
The research aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on future cities amidst climate change and poly-crisis by addressing how scarcity and its consequences shape urban development, what actions are taken at public and community levels, and the importance of resilience and collaboration for sustainable urban futures in Europe.
***
The Film “Small Crime” as a Lens on Τhirassia’s Marginalized Communities and Environmental Justice
ANGELIKI BARAS
Athens School of Fine Arts
Respondent: Saimir Kristo, Barleti University
Clip from the film ”Small Crime” (2007) by Christos Georgiou presenting the reaction of the two protagonists against the illegal initiative of the local rulers of the island, to exploit a plot in order to create the largest Water Park in the Mediterranean. On the banners are written the slogans “Your water slides elsewhere” and “Pebbles only to those who like them”, expressing in this way the contrast of touristic constructions that alter the natural environment, with the purity of nature that very few will understand. Source: Christos Georgiou.
The film “Small Crime” (2007) by Christos Georgiou, although fictional, depicts with particular sensitivity characteristic everyday situations that occur in the communities of the island of Thirassia. It is an almost “anthropological” approach and outline of the small island of Thirassia, which together with Thira make up the island complex of Santorini. Thirassia is a place that faced and faces problems of survival, while it is exposed to local, national and international crises. The unequal relationship between Thirassia and Thira, both on an economic and socio-political level, is a decisive factor for the course of development of the island, presenting at the same time particular research and even artistic interest.
The paper attempts to use the film “Small Crime” as a tool to present the coexistence of development and depopulation of the island, a coexistence that summarizes the history of development of many places in Greece, shedding light on issues related to irregular practices for tourist exploitation of the island, but also issues of environmental justice. On the one hand, the film offers explanations regarding the stereotype of the “stuck local” that usually accompanies the identity of “small places” like Thirasia. On the other hand, in an inventive way through the plot, it presents the operation to abolish the “authentically traditional” on the altar of profit from tourism, illuminating the invisible competition between touristized Santorini with its luxurious resorts and “deserted” Thirassia with its nudist beaches. The inevitable beauty of Thirassia, with its unique color palette, is not highlighted in the same picturesque way that would happen on a tourist island, but critically, leading thinking in directions that raise debates around the environmental values of a place.
15 April 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
Jermayne MacAgy:
Shaping Knowledge Through Space
PAMELA BIANCHI
École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville
Respondent: Ekin Pınar, Middle East Technical University
Exhibition view, Totems Not Taboo. An Exhibition of Primitive Art, curated by Jermayne MacAgy, February 26-March 29, 1959, Cullinan Hall at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
During her four-year tenure, she organized twenty-nine exhibitions that all translated her innovative understanding of museum layout and architecture. “Pioneering curator of modern art […] who managed to ignore design systems — or tried to work outside of systems of taste” (Hopps 2008: 22-24), MacAgy suggested a new comprehension of art history through aninnovative display set-up. Together with Alfred Barr, she was a student of Paul J. Sachs in his training program for art museums at Harvard University. Active in the mid-twentieth century, when, especially in America, a distinct museum and curatorial approach was being defined thanks to the contribution of the de Menils and the Arensbergs, MacAgy embodied the desire of the time to free art and architectural processes from univocal images, formal representations and contemplative acts, proposing a more interdisciplinary idea of creation attentive to the phenomenological experience.
MacAgy called into question the status of the artefact and the common object which she both understood as mnemonic signs of a shared cultural heritage, thus anticipating the topics that would be later developed by Szeeman’s a-historical approach or by the curatorship of Rudi Fuchs and William Rubin. Fostering defamiliarized contexts and settings and understanding the display as a significant gesture meant to mean, she used potted plants, gravel and claybeds, temporary fabric, structural mobile walls and pedestals of different sizes to dramatize the exhibition space.
Yet, today, her work is still unknown to many. Apart from the archives of the Menil Collection inHouston, very little literature from the mid-century exists. No comprehensive historiographical study has been conducted on her work other than a catalogue in 1968, which, however, does not offer any precise critical-analytical study. Consequently, the paper aims to deepen a historical-critical study to inscribe her work into the contemporary debate and eventually start a process of historicization of the central contribution she was able to instil in the museographysystem of the time.
***
Between Idea and Building:
Art, Architecture, and Identity in the Whitney Museum of American Art
LAUREN MCQUISTION
University of Virginia
Respondent: Özgür Esra Kahveci,
Istanbul Technical University
View of Marcel Breuer designed Whitney Museum of American Art (1966).
Image by Lauren McQuistion (2022).
Museums are canonizing machines. As an institutional typology associated with the production of cultural knowledge, museums use their architecture to project institutional authority and permanence in support of activities constructing narratives of shared cultural history. Since its formalization as a museum in New York City in 1930, the Whitney Museum of American Art’s mission has been dedicated to the institutionalization of works by living, American artists. While this priority has acted as a guiding principle, it is also a highly mutable concept which has manifested itself most visibly in the relationship between the Whitney and its architecture. Unlike other museums that have renovated, expanded, and, in some rare cases, demolished and rebuilt architecture, the Whitney has relocated multiple times, using radically contrasting architectural interventions to reinvent itself institutionally.
Each architectural iteration of the Whitney has marked a moment of solidified relations between the museum as an institution, the possibilities for the exhibition and reception of American Art, and the experience of the Whitney by its publics. This position ultimately contradicts the museum’s stated notion that “the Whitney is an idea, not a building”, a bifurcation between the concept of the museum and the museum’s architectural expression that has ultimately had significant consequences for the Whitney’s institutional authority, successes, and critiques over the course of its history.
The Whitney’s architecture does not stand alone as an object of history but is instead a significant component of a still emerging assemblage of people, practices, and objects. The institution cannot be understood without its architecture and vice versa, posing questions regarding the intersection of spatiality and the practices of curating, preserving, and presenting American Art, and by extension, architecture’s role in the formation of “American” cultural identity represented through these processes and facilitated by institutional spaces.
25 March 2025
10:00 AM EDT / 3:00 PM CET
ROBIN HUEPPE
ETH
Respondent: Anny Li, Harvard University
![]()
Left: Mound Lübarser Höhe by Märkisches Viertel, 1989, Right: Mound Kienberg by Marzahn, 1990 ©Bundesarchiv, Bild 180
***
EDMOND DRENOGLLAVA
University of Cincinnati
Respondent: Federico Marcomini, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
![]()
“The Waiter” – the so-called mural on the facade of the Hotel “Luboteni”. Source: Spomenik Database postcard archive.
1Referring to activities, issues, or policies that occur within the boundaries of a single nation and its domestic context. Although Yugoslavia was a multi-state federation, many of its policies were implemented intranationally within each republic, allowing for distinct regional dynamics to emerge while still operating under a unified federal framework.
2This was done in and on various pavilions at the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. On the latter, see Barbara Cohen, Trylon and Perisphere, New York: Abrams 1989.
10:00 AM EDT / 3:00 PM CET
TO COVER A MOUND
Post-War Land Governance in and around
Berlin's Mass Housing Estates (1945-1990)
ROBIN HUEPPE
ETH
Respondent: Anny Li, Harvard University
Left: Mound Lübarser Höhe by Märkisches Viertel, 1989, Right: Mound Kienberg by Marzahn, 1990 ©Bundesarchiv, Bild 180
Mounds
of rubble and waste emerged as companion infrastructures to the housing estates
of former East and West Berlin. In the neighborhoods of Marzahn (East) and Märkisches
Viertel (West), they conceal a complex narrative of power, resistance, and negotiation
in the pursuit of modern urbanization. Architectural histories often depict
Berlin's post-war expansion as a disruptive break from the periphery's
agro-industrial past, portraying it as an inevitable progression towards grands
ensembles. However, they frequently overlook the specific institutions and
their actors whose rejected, revised, and adopted land development plans reveal
how they used their power to control, divide, and displace.
This paper explores the governance of mass housing estates through a land-oriented approach, focusing on the mounds' transformation through various regimes. The design concept drew from a 1946 landscape master plan envisioning a linear city along Berlin’s glacial river valley, utilizing war rubble and disposed material to emphasize plateau edges. The covering topsoil of each mound narrates the story of the two neighborhoods from the ground up, considering the medium-term temporality of two transient state systems. By investigating the impact of tenure, funding, and political constraints on development plans, the story illuminates how governing institutions such as state and district planning offices wielded their power to divide and seize control of the land, leading to demolitions and accumulation of matter.
After considering the post-war context of migration and farmland buyouts, the evolution of the mounds from topographical concealment technologies to managed park-like pastorals is shaped by diverse design, labor, and planting practices. This study reads the rapid, bureaucratically layered development in West Berlin alongside the centralized, state-led approach in East Berlin, emphasizing transactions and shared dynamics. Through two detailed case studies, it unpacks the complexities of land governance, offering a different understanding of Berlin's mass housing estates by analyzing landscape as both a medium of power and a site of negotiation.
This paper explores the governance of mass housing estates through a land-oriented approach, focusing on the mounds' transformation through various regimes. The design concept drew from a 1946 landscape master plan envisioning a linear city along Berlin’s glacial river valley, utilizing war rubble and disposed material to emphasize plateau edges. The covering topsoil of each mound narrates the story of the two neighborhoods from the ground up, considering the medium-term temporality of two transient state systems. By investigating the impact of tenure, funding, and political constraints on development plans, the story illuminates how governing institutions such as state and district planning offices wielded their power to divide and seize control of the land, leading to demolitions and accumulation of matter.
After considering the post-war context of migration and farmland buyouts, the evolution of the mounds from topographical concealment technologies to managed park-like pastorals is shaped by diverse design, labor, and planting practices. This study reads the rapid, bureaucratically layered development in West Berlin alongside the centralized, state-led approach in East Berlin, emphasizing transactions and shared dynamics. Through two detailed case studies, it unpacks the complexities of land governance, offering a different understanding of Berlin's mass housing estates by analyzing landscape as both a medium of power and a site of negotiation.
***
The Waiter’s Wall: The Neo-Constructivist Microhistories in the 1960s Kosova
EDMOND DRENOGLLAVA
University of Cincinnati
Respondent: Federico Marcomini, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
“The Waiter” – the so-called mural on the facade of the Hotel “Luboteni”. Source: Spomenik Database postcard archive.
The internal colonial (hi)stories surrounding socialist Yugoslavia, in all of it, in its paradoxes and tenaciousness, are an intense global microhistory. The narratives emerging from Kosovar cities can be included among the neglected narratives, whereas those of avant-garde artists and artworks originating from Kosova are among the undiscussed and unacknowledged accounts—constituting the marginal of the marginal. To map out a more expansive international, and in this case, an “intra-national”1 constructivist network of individuals, ideas, and coalitions, this study analyzes the neo-constructivist mural called “The Waiter” (1961) displayed on the south-eastern elevation of the 1960s building, Hotel “Luboteni” (Fig.1.).
This unheeded example reveals the tension between the abstract, idealized art and the often practical, utilitarian architecture that mirrored the broader struggle within Yugoslav society to balance ideological purity with real-life constraints. In Kosova, hence in Yugoslavia as elsewhere in the world, with the economic depression and the rise of propagandistic governments, the painting entered the domain of architecture and flourished. Leger, Duty, and Delaunay in Paris, and Pollock, Gorky, and de Kooning in New York covered ‘architecture’ with their art.2 In the case of Hotel “Luboteni,” the mural is conceived as tectonic and allows architecture not just to include the figurative but to become the figurative, dematerializing architecture.
This only leads the study to raise two important questions about the ontological and cross-pollinative status of art and architecture (of the country) itself: first, how permeable was Kosova’s cultural space in receiving neo-avant-garde tendencies; and second, if and when representation becomes architecture, does the translation from drawing to building have a particular character in neo-avant-garde practice, retaining the qualities of idealism? The research, then, endeavors to illuminate and redefine one among many histories of a micro-zone and that of a micro-community aiming toward the end of history (in inverted Fukuyama terms)—all this microhistory is therefore not diminutive, it is not “micro” at all and is worth knowing for.
This unheeded example reveals the tension between the abstract, idealized art and the often practical, utilitarian architecture that mirrored the broader struggle within Yugoslav society to balance ideological purity with real-life constraints. In Kosova, hence in Yugoslavia as elsewhere in the world, with the economic depression and the rise of propagandistic governments, the painting entered the domain of architecture and flourished. Leger, Duty, and Delaunay in Paris, and Pollock, Gorky, and de Kooning in New York covered ‘architecture’ with their art.2 In the case of Hotel “Luboteni,” the mural is conceived as tectonic and allows architecture not just to include the figurative but to become the figurative, dematerializing architecture.
This only leads the study to raise two important questions about the ontological and cross-pollinative status of art and architecture (of the country) itself: first, how permeable was Kosova’s cultural space in receiving neo-avant-garde tendencies; and second, if and when representation becomes architecture, does the translation from drawing to building have a particular character in neo-avant-garde practice, retaining the qualities of idealism? The research, then, endeavors to illuminate and redefine one among many histories of a micro-zone and that of a micro-community aiming toward the end of history (in inverted Fukuyama terms)—all this microhistory is therefore not diminutive, it is not “micro” at all and is worth knowing for.
1Referring to activities, issues, or policies that occur within the boundaries of a single nation and its domestic context. Although Yugoslavia was a multi-state federation, many of its policies were implemented intranationally within each republic, allowing for distinct regional dynamics to emerge while still operating under a unified federal framework.
2This was done in and on various pavilions at the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. On the latter, see Barbara Cohen, Trylon and Perisphere, New York: Abrams 1989.
25 March 2025
10:00 AM EDT / 3:00 PM CET
ROBIN HUEPPE
ETH
Respondent: Anny Li, Harvard University
![]()
Left: Mound Lübarser Höhe by Märkisches Viertel, 1989, Right: Mound Kienberg by Marzahn, 1990 ©Bundesarchiv, Bild 180
***
EDMOND DRENOGLLAVA
University of Cincinnati
Respondent: Federico Marcomini, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
![]()
“The Waiter” – the so-called mural on the facade of the Hotel “Luboteni”. Source: Spomenik Database postcard archive.
1Referring to activities, issues, or policies that occur within the boundaries of a single nation and its domestic context. Although Yugoslavia was a multi-state federation, many of its policies were implemented intranationally within each republic, allowing for distinct regional dynamics to emerge while still operating under a unified federal framework.
2This was done in and on various pavilions at the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. On the latter, see Barbara Cohen, Trylon and Perisphere, New York: Abrams 1989.
10:00 AM EDT / 3:00 PM CET
TO COVER A MOUND
Post-War Land Governance in and around
Berlin's Mass Housing Estates (1945-1990)
ROBIN HUEPPE
ETH
Respondent: Anny Li, Harvard University
Left: Mound Lübarser Höhe by Märkisches Viertel, 1989, Right: Mound Kienberg by Marzahn, 1990 ©Bundesarchiv, Bild 180
Mounds
of rubble and waste emerged as companion infrastructures to the housing estates
of former East and West Berlin. In the neighborhoods of Marzahn (East) and Märkisches
Viertel (West), they conceal a complex narrative of power, resistance, and negotiation
in the pursuit of modern urbanization. Architectural histories often depict
Berlin's post-war expansion as a disruptive break from the periphery's
agro-industrial past, portraying it as an inevitable progression towards grands
ensembles. However, they frequently overlook the specific institutions and
their actors whose rejected, revised, and adopted land development plans reveal
how they used their power to control, divide, and displace.
This paper explores the governance of mass housing estates through a land-oriented approach, focusing on the mounds' transformation through various regimes. The design concept drew from a 1946 landscape master plan envisioning a linear city along Berlin’s glacial river valley, utilizing war rubble and disposed material to emphasize plateau edges. The covering topsoil of each mound narrates the story of the two neighborhoods from the ground up, considering the medium-term temporality of two transient state systems. By investigating the impact of tenure, funding, and political constraints on development plans, the story illuminates how governing institutions such as state and district planning offices wielded their power to divide and seize control of the land, leading to demolitions and accumulation of matter.
After considering the post-war context of migration and farmland buyouts, the evolution of the mounds from topographical concealment technologies to managed park-like pastorals is shaped by diverse design, labor, and planting practices. This study reads the rapid, bureaucratically layered development in West Berlin alongside the centralized, state-led approach in East Berlin, emphasizing transactions and shared dynamics. Through two detailed case studies, it unpacks the complexities of land governance, offering a different understanding of Berlin's mass housing estates by analyzing landscape as both a medium of power and a site of negotiation.
This paper explores the governance of mass housing estates through a land-oriented approach, focusing on the mounds' transformation through various regimes. The design concept drew from a 1946 landscape master plan envisioning a linear city along Berlin’s glacial river valley, utilizing war rubble and disposed material to emphasize plateau edges. The covering topsoil of each mound narrates the story of the two neighborhoods from the ground up, considering the medium-term temporality of two transient state systems. By investigating the impact of tenure, funding, and political constraints on development plans, the story illuminates how governing institutions such as state and district planning offices wielded their power to divide and seize control of the land, leading to demolitions and accumulation of matter.
After considering the post-war context of migration and farmland buyouts, the evolution of the mounds from topographical concealment technologies to managed park-like pastorals is shaped by diverse design, labor, and planting practices. This study reads the rapid, bureaucratically layered development in West Berlin alongside the centralized, state-led approach in East Berlin, emphasizing transactions and shared dynamics. Through two detailed case studies, it unpacks the complexities of land governance, offering a different understanding of Berlin's mass housing estates by analyzing landscape as both a medium of power and a site of negotiation.
***
The Waiter’s Wall: The Neo-Constructivist Microhistories in the 1960s Kosova
EDMOND DRENOGLLAVA
University of Cincinnati
Respondent: Federico Marcomini, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
“The Waiter” – the so-called mural on the facade of the Hotel “Luboteni”. Source: Spomenik Database postcard archive.
The internal colonial (hi)stories surrounding socialist Yugoslavia, in all of it, in its paradoxes and tenaciousness, are an intense global microhistory. The narratives emerging from Kosovar cities can be included among the neglected narratives, whereas those of avant-garde artists and artworks originating from Kosova are among the undiscussed and unacknowledged accounts—constituting the marginal of the marginal. To map out a more expansive international, and in this case, an “intra-national”1 constructivist network of individuals, ideas, and coalitions, this study analyzes the neo-constructivist mural called “The Waiter” (1961) displayed on the south-eastern elevation of the 1960s building, Hotel “Luboteni” (Fig.1.).
This unheeded example reveals the tension between the abstract, idealized art and the often practical, utilitarian architecture that mirrored the broader struggle within Yugoslav society to balance ideological purity with real-life constraints. In Kosova, hence in Yugoslavia as elsewhere in the world, with the economic depression and the rise of propagandistic governments, the painting entered the domain of architecture and flourished. Leger, Duty, and Delaunay in Paris, and Pollock, Gorky, and de Kooning in New York covered ‘architecture’ with their art.2 In the case of Hotel “Luboteni,” the mural is conceived as tectonic and allows architecture not just to include the figurative but to become the figurative, dematerializing architecture.
This only leads the study to raise two important questions about the ontological and cross-pollinative status of art and architecture (of the country) itself: first, how permeable was Kosova’s cultural space in receiving neo-avant-garde tendencies; and second, if and when representation becomes architecture, does the translation from drawing to building have a particular character in neo-avant-garde practice, retaining the qualities of idealism? The research, then, endeavors to illuminate and redefine one among many histories of a micro-zone and that of a micro-community aiming toward the end of history (in inverted Fukuyama terms)—all this microhistory is therefore not diminutive, it is not “micro” at all and is worth knowing for.
This unheeded example reveals the tension between the abstract, idealized art and the often practical, utilitarian architecture that mirrored the broader struggle within Yugoslav society to balance ideological purity with real-life constraints. In Kosova, hence in Yugoslavia as elsewhere in the world, with the economic depression and the rise of propagandistic governments, the painting entered the domain of architecture and flourished. Leger, Duty, and Delaunay in Paris, and Pollock, Gorky, and de Kooning in New York covered ‘architecture’ with their art.2 In the case of Hotel “Luboteni,” the mural is conceived as tectonic and allows architecture not just to include the figurative but to become the figurative, dematerializing architecture.
This only leads the study to raise two important questions about the ontological and cross-pollinative status of art and architecture (of the country) itself: first, how permeable was Kosova’s cultural space in receiving neo-avant-garde tendencies; and second, if and when representation becomes architecture, does the translation from drawing to building have a particular character in neo-avant-garde practice, retaining the qualities of idealism? The research, then, endeavors to illuminate and redefine one among many histories of a micro-zone and that of a micro-community aiming toward the end of history (in inverted Fukuyama terms)—all this microhistory is therefore not diminutive, it is not “micro” at all and is worth knowing for.
1Referring to activities, issues, or policies that occur within the boundaries of a single nation and its domestic context. Although Yugoslavia was a multi-state federation, many of its policies were implemented intranationally within each republic, allowing for distinct regional dynamics to emerge while still operating under a unified federal framework.
2This was done in and on various pavilions at the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. On the latter, see Barbara Cohen, Trylon and Perisphere, New York: Abrams 1989.
4 March 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
DocTalks x MoMA
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
DocTalks x MoMA
The Desagüe Debates: Water and Drainage in Enlightenment Mexico
REBECCA YUSTE
Columbia University
Respondent: Seth Denizen, Washington University
in St. Louis
Axolotl. Amphibia. Amybystoma. Torner Collection of Sessé and Mociño Biological Illustrations, courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 6331.1253.
This paper examines the role that the desagüe, or drainage system, played in the modification of the environmental conditions of the Valley of Mexico in the late Enlightenment. Begun in the sixteenth century, the desagüe was designed to protect Mexico City from the seasonal floods of Lake Texcoco. Drainage continued for the following two hundred years, using technologies and procedures learned in mining and extraction projects elsewhere in Mexico to uncover useful, productive, arid land. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the effects of systematically eliminating water from the valley began to emerge. Creole scientists, in particular José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez (1737-1799), became increasingly concerned with the climatic effects of this changing environment. They observed and wrote about the atmosphere, weather patterns, flora and fauna, and the cultural and societal changes suffered by the indios who lived in surrounding villages. These scientists, many of whom worked in opposition to the Bourbon crown, articulated a deep skepticism towards these neo-mercantilist imperial projects, instead proposing a more conservation-minded approach to land and water management. The desagüe, then, becomes an early site to think about the relationship between human activity and climate change. It offers a case study in the longue-dur.e of environmental and ecological history. As the work of these creole scientists demonstrates, an ecological dissent emerged alongside techniques of land control and disruption. Calling into question the need to so drastically change the natural world, these scientists were ultimately silenced, as the imperial reformist projects marched forward in the name of progress, eventually draining the lake completely and forever altering the environmental identity of the valley.
***
Salt and Land
YOSUKE NAKAMOTO
ETH Zürich
Respondent: Esra Sert, MEF University
Influx Tidal Salt Field, Mitajiri, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 1953
This thesis investigates the modernisation of the salt industry in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea region, focusing on the concept of "metabolic rift" derived from Marx's critique of capitalist agriculture. It examines how salt, a vital resource historically embedded in Japan's maritime culture, has shaped the evolving relationship between land and society, from traditional methods of production to contemporary industrial processes. The research traces the historical evolution of salt production, beginning with the premodern tidal influx method, which relied on natural environmental conditions and fostered reciprocal trade between coastal and inland communities. This labor-intensive practice tied salt production deeply to the rhythms of nature and established salt as an economic and cultural link between regions. However, the introduction of mechanised methods, such as the gravity flow and ion-exchange membrane processes in the 20th century, marked a shift towards greater efficiency and standardisation. These technological advancements, driven largely by government monopolisation and the demands of global markets, transformed the salt industry from a locally integrated system into an industrialised, globalised process.
The thesis argues that this shift toward industrial efficiency and reliance on imported salt represents a broader environmental and cultural estrangement, or "metabolic rift," disconnecting local communities from the land and sea. The loss of traditional salt fields signifies not only an economic shift but also the erosion of cultural practices and environmental stewardship linked to Japan’s coastal landscapes. Ultimately, the thesis advocates for a comprehensive reevaluation of Japan's coastal history, which has often been marginalised in favour of prevailing agricultural narratives. By positioning salt as a critical lens for examining the country’s environmental and economic transformations, it emphasises the need to restore Japan's maritime heritage as an essential component of understanding the nation’s cultural landscape.
The thesis argues that this shift toward industrial efficiency and reliance on imported salt represents a broader environmental and cultural estrangement, or "metabolic rift," disconnecting local communities from the land and sea. The loss of traditional salt fields signifies not only an economic shift but also the erosion of cultural practices and environmental stewardship linked to Japan’s coastal landscapes. Ultimately, the thesis advocates for a comprehensive reevaluation of Japan's coastal history, which has often been marginalised in favour of prevailing agricultural narratives. By positioning salt as a critical lens for examining the country’s environmental and economic transformations, it emphasises the need to restore Japan's maritime heritage as an essential component of understanding the nation’s cultural landscape.
4 February 2025
8:00 AM EST/ 2:00 PM CET
DocTalks x MoMA
8:00 AM EST/ 2:00 PM CET
DocTalks x MoMA
In Front of Everyone’s Eyes:
Cruising Infrastructure in Berlin’s Hasenheide and Whole Festival
CAROLINA SEPÚLVEDA
Harvard University
Respondent: Qiran Shang, University of Pennsylvania
Cruising: Whole Festival at Ferropolis, 2024. Credit: Tomás Eyzaguirre
The research begins with the premise that queer bodies and their collective associations are intricately shaped by their continuous interaction with the urban environment. Similarly, urban life is formed and contested by the diverse collective actions that subjectivities play in the public sphere, serving as indicators for measuring cultural currents. Cities, in this manner, are molded by infrastructures, demonstrating how sets of processes, policies, and practices converge differently in specific places and at particular times.
The proposal delves into the interaction between queer individuals and urban infrastructure within Berlin’s parks. Here, I explore the concepts of “body as infrastructure,” “infrastructured bodies,” and “queer infrastructure” to explain the dynamics between queer bodies, collective affects, and the urban environment. The study focuses on two moments of collective revolt against infrastructure in different time periods. Firstly, I scrutinize the Turnplatz, the first open-air gymnasium inaugurated in 1811 within Hasenheide Volkspark, which faced closure in 1819 following an uprising culminating in the assassination of poet Kotzebue. Secondly, I link Hasenheide's historical Turnplatz to its contemporary role as a cruising site—a practice involving seeking sexual encounters in public areas, typically among men—ultimately connecting it to the genesis of the WHOLE Festival, a three-day queer event situated in Ferropolis, so-called the “city of iron,” featuring cruising areas alongside music stages and darkroom spaces.
The evolution of Hasenheide park from a site emphasizing bodily rigor and discipline in the 19th century to a renowned venue for bodily pleasure through cruising or public sex reflects a broader cultural transformation in contemporary Berlin. Lastly, these cases shed light on the interplay of inclusion and exclusion dynamics arising from the intersection of identity formation, infrastructure, and modern life.
***
Thinking Like a River:
Land, Water & Territorial Imagination in Colonial Punjab (1849-1920)
JAVAIRIA SHAHID
Columbia University
Respondent: Sonali Gowri Dhanpal, Columbia University
Left: The Bar Before Colonization: Caption: “Here the Bar is seen in its natural condition before the introduction of canal irrigation. At this site the jungle growth in the foreground is less than usual. The ragged clumps of trees are characteristic.”
Right: The Bar After Colonization. Caption: “This illustrates what Government waste lands will look like when irrigation is developed in a few years’ time. This illustration speaks volumes.” (Source British Library)
During the pivotal decades spanning India's subjugation to the British crown in 1857 and its eventual partition in 1947, the arid wastelands of Punjab underwent a profound transformation under the sway of colonial governance and economic imperatives. Once inhospitable desert wasteland, these lands were transfigured into fertile fields dedicated to the cultivation of lucrative cash crops (sugarcane, wheat & cotton) and the mobilization of labor.
British engineers and planners, discerning India's hydrological challenge not as one of water scarcity but of its erratic abundance at the wrong time, embarked upon a monumental endeavor to tame the Indus. Their ambition was succinctly articulated by Geoffrey de Montmorency, Governor of the Punjab from 1928 to 1933, who envisioned nothing less than to "make the desert bloom." The solution they proposed: perennial canal irrigation and alluvial planning—a strategic approach to reining in Punjab's tumultuous environment by orchestrating land utilization in harmony with the rhythms of irrigation and water management, negotiated against the caprices of rivers, rainfall, and soil. My dissertation project traces the intricate web of transformations wrought by this endeavor in the Chenab Canal Colony. Here, I examine how the architecture of mandi towns served as the nexus for the convergence of imperial networks spanning the Indian subcontinent, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean world, between the dynamics of extraction between colonial power and the indigenous knowledge and labor. By shifting the focus from notions of improvement to considerations of depletion, this project reconfigures our understanding of water and land and their intrinsic value within the imperial paradigm.
18 February 2025
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
MAGDALENA GRÜNER
Universität Hamburg
Respondent: Krista Mileva-Frank, MIT
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Deep-sea diorama in the New York Zoological Society pavilion, New York World’s Fair 1939/40, size and materials unknown, Princeton University Library Special Collections, William Beebe Papers, box 12, folder 9.
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Creating a Social Environment for Coexistence: American Architectural Discourse and
MAN JOONG KIM
Binghamton University
Respondent: Sang Pil Lee, Kennesaw State University
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Left diagram: Kim Tai Soo, Van Block Housing, Progressive Architecture (January 1969) Right floor plan: Woo Kyu Sung, Roosevelt Island, AIA Journal (July 1975)
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
“Forever Hidden”: Architectures of epistemological resistance at the New York World’s Fair 1939/40
MAGDALENA GRÜNER
Universität Hamburg
Respondent: Krista Mileva-Frank, MIT
Deep-sea diorama in the New York Zoological Society pavilion, New York World’s Fair 1939/40, size and materials unknown, Princeton University Library Special Collections, William Beebe Papers, box 12, folder 9.
The pavilion of the New York Zoological Society at the 1939/40 World’s Fair was a veritable twentieth century cabinet of curiosities: electric eel “Electra” sending out Westen Union telegrams, the Bronx Zoo’s famed giant panda “Pandora,” a number of titillating birds and fish labelled as the “crown jewels” as well as habitat groups of different sizes. The highlight of the exhibit, however, was the area dedicated to William Beebe’s deep sea dives on the Bermuda Oceanographic Expeditions, which were the site of the first crewed descents to the ocean-depths, conducted with a diving device called the “bathysphere” in the early 1930ies. This spherical part of the building housed not only the bathysphere itself, but also a series of deep sea dioramas, modeled after pictures painted by expedition artist Else Bostelmann. Within the sphere, a show of light and darkness, of seeing and not-seeing, of science and fiction awaited the audience. While this exhibit can be understood as a model of the bathysphere, the deep sea, and of being present in the deep sea all at once, it also articulates scientific epistemology that embraces non-knowledge, imagination, and fantasy as crucial vehicles of knowledge-making. The aim of my paper is to argue that the bathysphere exhibit is one of the displays on the 1939/40 World’s Fair grounds that undermined the general message of the fair which emphasized a science based on technocratic principles as the key to a prosperous future. Instead, it proposed a science that met its subject of investigation with curiosity rather than rationalist domestication, with awareness of its own limitations rather than claims of absolute authority, with playful engagement rather than entitled mastery.
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Creating a Social Environment for Coexistence: American Architectural Discourse and
Korean Architects/Urban Planners during the Cold War
MAN JOONG KIM
Binghamton University
Respondent: Sang Pil Lee, Kennesaw State University
Left diagram: Kim Tai Soo, Van Block Housing, Progressive Architecture (January 1969) Right floor plan: Woo Kyu Sung, Roosevelt Island, AIA Journal (July 1975)
Throughout the 1960s, new perceptions of the environment were ignited by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Martin Luther King Jr.’s advocacy for the Fair Housing Act. The built environment should have shifted its focus toward ecological and spatial justice. Simultaneously, architecture students from Korea, who longed to embrace modernist architecture, encountered challenges from postmodernist claims on their campuses. Faculty and students in U.S. schools were relatively progressive and sought to engage with the discourses demanded by society, while Korean students adjusted themselves to the novel North Atlantic framework through theory and practice. However, the narrative was not exclusively characterized by progressive tendencies. During the Cold War, the United States—as a state, institutions, and schools—actively sought to intervene in domestic urban crises as well as challenges within the Third World with architecture.
This study will examine how architecture students from Korea—specifically Kim Tai Soo, Woo Kyu Sung, and Kang Hong Bin—received education in the United States and how the reinterpreted and recontextualized their experiences from the U.S. in Korea as architects and urban planners. Furthermore, it will explore how architecture and urban planning that embodied publicness became a significant discourse and how this had supported their careers. The participated from the early stages of new interdisciplinary fields such as urban design and architectural theory, fulfilling a role of avant-garde.
This study will examine how architecture students from Korea—specifically Kim Tai Soo, Woo Kyu Sung, and Kang Hong Bin—received education in the United States and how the reinterpreted and recontextualized their experiences from the U.S. in Korea as architects and urban planners. Furthermore, it will explore how architecture and urban planning that embodied publicness became a significant discourse and how this had supported their careers. The participated from the early stages of new interdisciplinary fields such as urban design and architectural theory, fulfilling a role of avant-garde.