The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert led the Opening Plenary on Friday, titled “Framing the Problem.”

Part of the agenda at the Re-imagining Cities conference was to create a manifesto for urban design curriculum moving forward. To spark the conversation, a panel was held on Saturday morning titled “An Agenda for Urban Design Education.” Read more…

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Judith Rodin addressing the Re-imagining Cities conference on Friday morning.

In an op-ed last Monday, New York Times columnist David Brooks predicted an Obama win and he speculated on the biggest challenge for his administration and our country: scarcity. It was a word that came up quite a bit at this weekend’s Re-imagining Cities conference.

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During a workshop on local urban design yesterday morning at the Re-imagining Cities symposium, K.T. Ravindran from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi raised an interesting point. We had just seen presentations filled with futuristic-looking renderings of things like buildings with heliostats, and Ravindran responded, “In times of stress and change, it can be hard to absorb new forms.” Read more…

In 1958, the Rockefeller Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania hosted the groundbreaking “Conference on Urban Design Criticism.” In an age of urban renewal and tear-down redevelopment, the gathering was meant to forge a new understanding of city planning and design. Jane Jacobs, I.M. Pei, Lewis Mumford, and Louis Kahn were among the attendees. Jacobs left and began work on The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The event, by all accounts, helped galvanize thinking around the emerging field of American urban planning. Fifty years later and The Rockefeller Foundation and Penn are partnering again.

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