Landscapes of Development Symposium

Princeton University School of Architecture
April 28, 2017
12:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Betts Auditorium
Organized by Ayala Levin

The symposium will explore postwar transnational territorial planning in Africa and the Middle East. By using the lens of “landscape” we will consider planning beyond the urban-rural divide, and question the demarcations and boundaries in the production of territories as objects of knowledge and development. Architecture and planning, in this discussion, will stand for a range of techniques to organize, manage, and imagine physical space as a complex interaction of infrastructure, natural resources, housing, agriculture, industry, labor and consumption. Among the questions we will consider are how processes of territorial reorganization have been used to identify and structure resources as such; how changing habits of consumption and habitation have shaped new forms of production and labor relations; how the relationship between humans and their environments has been re-conceptualized against the backdrop of the legacy of colonialism and competing local epistemologies; and finally, how the interchange between local and foreign agents has affected territorial or environmental knowledge production.

12:30 p.m. Lunch Reception / Student Exhibition

1:00 p.m. Introduction

1:10 – 3:40 p.m. Landscapes of Knowledge Production

“The Middle East as a Site of Multidirectional Developmentalism”
Cyrus Schayegh (Princeton)

“Counting Quality: Tyrwhitt, Geddes, and Statistics”
Ijlal Muzaffar (Rhode Island School of Design)

“Ecological Exceptionalism”
Kathleen John Adler (Rutgers University)

Discussion with
Lucia Allais (Princeton)

3:40 – 4:00 p.m. Coffee Break

4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Landscapes of Reform

“Nation’s Domicle: Politics of Housing and Land Economics in the Cold War Frontier”
Burak Erdim (North Carolina State University)

“Territorializing Revolution in Algeria, 1962–1978”
Sheila Crane (University of Virginia)

Discussion with
Meredith TenHoor (Pratt Institute)

6:00 – 6:30 p.m. Roundtable discussion with
Megan Eardley (Princeton)