U-M conference delves into understanding and sustaining cities, sense of place and local culture

DATE: 5-7 p.m. Thursday, (Jan. 4); 8:45 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday; 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday.

EVENT: “Global Place: Politics, Practice and the Polis,” a major international conference. The timely and provocative discussion explores the many meanings and roles of “place,” the built environment historically referred to as city or metropolis. Coming 100 years after the founding of the architecture program at the University of Michigan and celebrating its centennial, “Global Place” will help define the emerging challenges and opportunities of globalism, an all-encompassing, definitive term akin to moderism a century ago.

As global trade and finance dissolves international borders and the communications revolution redefines notions of time and space, there is a growing urgency to comprehend how rapid social and technological change influences our fundamental relationship to community and the physical environment. The conference seeks to capture the paradox of creating a sense of place in a world of megacities dominated by many technological forces that foster a placeless and generic culture without a sense of rootedness, such as the increasingly crowded universe of cyberspace.

A range of the world’s top experts will discuss the relationships between architecture, ecology, technology, geo-politics, religion and contemporary notions of a urbanism. Two dozen guest scholars, social pundits, architects and urban planners will examine these and other emerging issues of architecture and urban planning. Ultimately, the conference will address the central question: How can the design and planning of the built environment contribute to the humanity and sustainability of a highly fluid, global society? And, what are the public, private and institutional forces that can foster and maintain positive change?

Conference participants are available for interviews. Participants include Saskia Sassen, Charles Correa, Michael Sorkin, Homi Bhabha, Liane LeFaivre, Ed Mazria, David Orr, John Thackara, Harrison Fraker, Teddy Cruz, Susan Fainstein, Bish Sanyal, Daniel Solomon, Anne Spirn, Anne Vernez-Moudon, Anthony Townsend, AnthonyTung, Marilyn Taylor, Alex Wall and Ken Yeang. (Biographies of participants can be found at www.tcaup.umich.edu)

PLACE: Thursday at Rackham Auditorium; Friday and Saturday at Biomedical Sciences Research Building Auditorium. Both buildings back on to Huron Street on Central Campus.