Urbanization is more than the growth and physical expansion of cities. It
is a process that transforms territories, changes existing reciprocities and
establishes new relationships between different places. In the Shadow of the
Megacity will address the wider impact of urbanization, both within and
beyond the city, in an attempt to trace the present contours of the urban and
imagine its future.
In the Shadow of the Megacity was a two-part symposium. We began our
conversation with an event titled “Rural Settlements
Today”. This two-day gathering took place in Wellfleet and aspired to
further the tradition of conversations and intellectual gatherings that took
place on the Outer Cape in the mid-twentieth century. Leading scholars and
professionals, together with local officials, discussed questions of land use,
housing, infrastructure and ecology in an attempt to understand the existing
conditions and opportunities for development in rural settlements today.
Our second
event, “Urbanization and Beyond,” took place at The Cooper Union in New York City. We continued the conversation and raised questions concerning the agency of
architecture and design in relation to the processes of urbanization.
The symposium was hosted and supported by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust as part of its annual residency program and by The Cooper Union School of Architecture and Institute of Sustainable Design.
