Description
Book SynopsisPOST-TRAUMATIC URBANISM
Urban trauma describes a condition where conflict or catastrophe has disrupted and damaged not only the physical environment and infrastructure of a city, but also the social and cultural networks. Cities experiencing trauma dominate the daily news. Images of blasted buildings or events such as Hurricane Katrina exemplify the sense of ''immediate impact''. But how is this trauma to be understood in its aftermath, and in urban terms? What is the response of the discipline to the post-traumatic condition? On the one hand, one can try to restore and recover everything that has passed, or otherwise see the post-traumatic city as a resilient space poised on the cusp of new potentialities. While repair and reconstruction are automatic reflexes, the knowledge and practices of the disciplines need to be imbued with a deeper understanding of the effect of trauma on cities and their contingent realities. This issue will pursue this latter approach, using exam
Table of Contents
Editorial 5
Helen Castle
About The Guest-Editors 6
Adrian Lahoud, Charles Rice and Anthony Burke
Spotlight 8
Visual highlights of the issue
Introduction 14
Post-Traumatic Urbanism
Adrian Lahoud
Trauma Within the Walls: Notes Towards a Philosophy of the City 24
Andrew Benjamin
The Space-Time of Pre-emption: An Interview with Brian Massumi 32
Charles Rice
Making Dubai: A Process in Crisis 38
Todd Reisz
Changes of State: Slow Motion Trauma in the Gangetic Plains of India 44
Anthony Acciavatti
After the Event: Speculative Projects in the Aftermath 50
Samantha Spurr
Forensic Architecture 58
Eyal Weizman, Paulo Tavares, Susan Schuppli and Situ Studio
The Infrastructure of Stability 64
Tarsha Finney
Post-Apocalypse Now 70
Mark Fisher
The Eighth Day: God Created the World in Seven Days. 74
This is The Eighth Day
Tony Chakar
Figures in the Sand 78
Christopher Hight and Michael Robinson
The Urban Complex: Scalar Probabilities and Urban Computation 86
Anthony Burke
Project for a Mediterranean Union 92
Adrian Lahoud
Fearscapes: Caracas Postcards from a Violent City 102
Eduardo Kairuz
Energy Territories 108
Anthony Burke
Architecture, Contingency and Crisis: An Interview with Slavoj iek 112
Adrian Lahoud
The Very Mark of Repression: The Demolition Theatre of the Palast der Republik and the New Schloss Berlin 116
Khadija Carroll La
On Message: An Interview with Michael Chertoff 124
Charles Rice
Borderline Syndrome 126
Ole Bouman
COUNTERPOINT Rebuilding from Below the Bottom: Haiti 128
Jayne Merkel and Craig Whitaker
