Snippets from Doors of Perception report Oct 2006

SUSTAINABLE CITY LECTURES
The Leeds, UK, Schumacher Lectures 2006 feature Susan Roaf on Solar
Cities, Herbert Girardet on Cities of the Future, Ezio Manzini on The
Sustainable Everyday, Peter Harper on Building Sustainable Communities.
http://www.schumacher.org.uk/lsl06.htm

CANUTE AGAINST CREATIVE CLUSTERS (1)
King Canute is best remembered because he commanded the waves to go
back. When one sycophant gushed that the king could even command
the obedience of the sea, Canute proved him wrong by practical
demonstration. At the Creative Clusters conference, in November, John Thackara will
propose, Canute-like, that bottom-up social innovation is a better way
to revive cities than setting up ghettos filled with PR consultants.
5-8 November, Newcastle-Gateshead, North-East England.
http://www.creativeclusters.com/modules/eventsystem/?fct=viewprogsummary&eventsid=8

CANUTE AGAINST CREATIVE CLUSTERS (2)
Two steps forward, one step back. In 2003 John Thackara gave a lecture called “The
post-spectacular city” at a conference in Amsterdam. He argued that
today’s “creative class”, having optimised the society of the spectacle,
will be remembered for leaving behind narcissistic but meaningless
cities. The talk was published in a book (Creativity and the City)
published by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi). Did his
devastating critique change the course of urban design and development?
Not exactly. A new show called “The Spectacular City” has opened
at….theNAi.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2003/09/the_postspectac_1.php
http://www.nai.nl/e/calendar/activities/spect_city_e.html