Category Archives: Architecture

Review: The City Recycled: The Afterlives of Demolished Buildings in Post-war Beijing

Shih-yang Kao’s dissertation on demolition waste in Beijing provides rich material for scholars interested in the players involved in urban-rural discard commodity chains. While post-demolition waste was considered a resource for both socialist (1949-1978) and reform era (1978-present) governments, The City Recycled: The Afterlives of Demolished Buildings in Post-war Beijing narrates how values of waste shifted for each period, as well as how it continues to shift under different present-day policies, geographical locations, regional and local economies, and stakeholder groups.

Ruin Memories Portfolio online

Numerous studies have focused on modernity’s destructive effect on traditional life- worlds, the desertion of villages and the ruination of rural areas. However, the fact that the modern condition also produces its own ruined materialities, its own marginalized pasts, is less spoken about. Since the 19th century, mass-production, consumerism and thus cycles of material replacement […]
Read More »

Article Alert- Reckoning with ruins

Progress in Human Geography has just published a great overview of the academic study of ruins by Caitlin DeSilvey and Tim Edensor called “Reckoning with ruins.” Abstract: Scholarly interest in ruins and derelict spaces has intensified over the last decade. We assess a broad selection of the resulting literature and identify several key themes. We […]
Read More »

The Atemporality of “Ruin Porn”: The Carcass & the Ghost by Sarah Wanenchak

*This post originally appeared on Cyborgology. Objects have lives. They are witness to things. –This American Life, “The House on Loon Lake” Atlantic Cities’ feature on the psychology of “ruin porn” is worth a look–in part because it’s interesting in itself, in part because it features some wonderful images, and in part because it has […]
Read More »

Call for NCPH Roundtable Participants: Innovative Reuse in the Post-Industrial City

We are currently seeking 3-4 participants for our roundtable titled “Innovative Reuse in the Post-Industrial City” at the NCPH Annual Meeting in Monterrey, CA, March 19-22, 2014. Participants should have either worked on or currently working on historic preservation projects on less charismatic structures such as industrial buildings and abandoned infrastructures in urban areas. Discussion […]
Read More »

CFP: Urban “wastelands”: patterns of emergence and appropriation

12th International Conference on Urban History European Association for Urban History (EAUH) Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal 03-06 September 2014 http://www.eauh2014.fcsh.unl.pt Session Organisers/ Responsables de la session: Christoph Bernhardt (Germany) – Leibniz-Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS) christoph.bernhardt@alumni.tu-berlin.de Michèle Dagenais (Canada) – Université de Montréal michele.dagenais@umontreal.ca (la version française suit) Urban “wastelands” have […]
Read More »

Wall Dogs

Writing for Biz Journals, Michael DeMasi reports on Albany, New York’s efforts to preserve fading advertisements on the sides of city buildings. As part of Albany’s Sculpture in the Streets exhibit (sponsored by the Downtown Albany Business Improvement District), the work of 19th and early 20th century “wall dogs” (muralists who adorned buildings with colorful […]
Read More »

Race, Class, and Disaster Gentrification

By Zoltán Glück Originally published in Tidal on March 13, 2013 In the days and weeks following Hurricane Sandy the inequalities at the heart of New York City could scarcely be missed.  While hundreds of thousands of public housing residents went without heat, hot water or electricity, Mayor Michael Bloomberg rushed to get the stock […]
Read More »

CFP: Pipes, People, and Politics: Dis/Unconnected Urban Infrastructure and Community Responses

“Pipes, People, and Politics: Dis/Unconnected Urban Infrastructure and Community Responses” American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, 2013 Meeting theme: Future Publics, Current Engagements November 20 – 24, 2013 Chicago, IL http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/ Session Organizers: Lucero Radonic and Angela Storey, The University of Arizona. Be it formal or informal, large-scale or small-scale, present or absent, urban infrastructure […]
Read More »

The Recycling of Building Materials in Late Antiquity: Practice and Ideology 3/9/13

The Recycling of Building Materials in Late Antiquity: Practice and Ideology Saturday 9th March, 10.00-4.00 pm The Birley Room, D203, Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK Schedule: 10.00 am Coffee I: 10.30-11.15 Managing Spolia: Legislation and Economy Legislation and Architectural Reuse in the Roman Empire (100 BC – AD 500) By Yuri Marano, yuri_marano@hotmail.com In […]
Read More »