Papers by Matthew Skjonsberg
De Gruyter eBooks, Apr 17, 2013
Oz, 2012
Infrastructure can be wielded as a means of promoting the common good or as an institutional weap... more Infrastructure can be wielded as a means of promoting the common good or as an institutional weapon of exploitation. Regardless of how a particular infrastructure is represented, it is not always clear which role it plays at any given moment
Seen through the ‘frankly eutopian’ lens of Patrick Geddes’ regional survey methods – encompassin... more Seen through the ‘frankly eutopian’ lens of Patrick Geddes’ regional survey methods – encompassing both his pragmatic involvement with existing cities and his regional ambitions – this essay considers several practical interpretations of the term ‘genius’ as it relates to the legacy of ‘utopia’. First we will consider genius along the lines of the most commonly understood, conventional sense of the term – as someone of extraordinary ability, capability, and influence. Then we will consider genius in the sense of ingenuity – the genius of the idea of utopia – in that Thomas More’s ‘invention’ of the term utopia in 1516 gave subsequent generations a name for an effective way to conceptualize, communicate, and give form to future aspirations. Finally, we will consider the site-specific implications of genius loci, demonstrating that Geddes’ implicitly ecological notion of ‘utopia’ was fundamentally evolutionary – and explicitly temporal – and that it was informed by his active interest in cultivating the desirable qualities already present in existing cities.
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 31, 2011
Keywords: landscape infrastructure ; agrarian urbanism ; rural urban metabolism ; intergeneration... more Keywords: landscape infrastructure ; agrarian urbanism ; rural urban metabolism ; intergenerational legacy Reference EPFL-CHAPTER-204895 Record created on 2015-01-30, modified on 2016-08-09
An overview of the ‘new’ Charter of Athens, asserting and formulating the rights of the elements ... more An overview of the ‘new’ Charter of Athens, asserting and formulating the rights of the elements so as to ensure the fundamental right to life of all, from urban centers to the web of life upon which they rely – thereby fundamentally ‘advocating’ and ‘facilitating the use and development’ of human structures (both infrastructural and social) towards the resolution of all human-related crises: economical, social and environmental. A collection of essays addressing the proposed rights of water, earth, air and fire are assembled, proving the remarkable durability of intercultural, historic narratives of ‘the elements’ by demonstrating their relevance to contemporary questions of urbanization in a post-oil world.
Note: Y4S4 DIABLERETS Reference EPFL-TALK-217195 URL: http://alice.epfl.ch/page-125104-fr.html Re... more Note: Y4S4 DIABLERETS Reference EPFL-TALK-217195 URL: http://alice.epfl.ch/page-125104-fr.html Record created on 2016-03-07, modified on 2016-08-09
Keywords: landscape narrative ; rural urban dynamics Reference EPFL-TALK-217188 Record created on... more Keywords: landscape narrative ; rural urban dynamics Reference EPFL-TALK-217188 Record created on 2016-03-07, modified on 2017-05-12
Topos: European landscape magazine, 2014
Seen through the ‘frankly eutopian’ lens of Patrick Geddes’s regional survey methods—encompassing... more Seen through the ‘frankly eutopian’ lens of Patrick Geddes’s regional survey methods—encompassing both his pragmatic involvement with existing cities and his regional ambitions—this essay considers several practical interpretations of the term ‘genius’ as it relates to the legacy of ‘utopia’. First we will consider genius along the lines of the most commonly understood, conventional sense of the term—as someone of extraordinary ability, capability, and influence. Then we will consider genius in the sense of ingenuity—the genius of the idea of utopia—in that Thomas More’s ‘invention’ of the term utopia in 1516 gave subsequent generations a name for an effective way to conceptualize, communicate, and give form to future aspirations. Finally, we will consider the site-specific implications of genius loci, demonstrating that Geddes’s implicitly ecological notion of ‘utopia’ was fundamentally evolutionary—and explicitly temporal—and that it was informed by his active interest in cultivating the desirable qualities already present in existing cities.
Marieke TiMMerMans Re a ding a L a ndsc a pe • Daniel CzeChowski T he L ay eR s of L a ndsc a pe ... more Marieke TiMMerMans Re a ding a L a ndsc a pe • Daniel CzeChowski T he L ay eR s of L a ndsc a pe • riCharD senneTT n a RR aT i v e and agenc y • MarTí FranCh discoveRing T he Liquid L andsc a pe of L a Tanc ada L agoon, spain • luigi laTini cuLTivaTion in L andsc a pes of Wa R, Bosnia • alexa weik von Mossner cinemaTic L andsc a pes • saskia sassen L and a s infR a sTRuc T uRe foR Living • aDriaan geuze The n a RR aTive of sToLen pa R adise • J. M. leDgarD, MaTThew skJonsberg on e aRTh-a conveRsaTion aBouT afRic a
How can you understand your city more deeply? This exhibition presents the ways in which the Indi... more How can you understand your city more deeply? This exhibition presents the ways in which the Indianapolis-based informal collective We Are City has answered that question over the past two years. At the center of this show are the products of We Are City's artist-in-residence program, which has brought six internationally active artists into conversation with Indianapolis residents. Featuring these artists' visual, audio, linguistic, and material responses to their time in Indianapolis, as well as other documentation of We Are City's activities, [EXPORT] shares the group's city engagement efforts with a new audience in Columbus.
An overview of the essay 'Do It Yourself: from individual sovereignty to civic design', a... more An overview of the essay 'Do It Yourself: from individual sovereignty to civic design', and a report on Taliesin apprenticeship as pertains to future museum programming.
'Terra Firma' (La. terra: 'earth,' firma: 'solid') addresses the role of ... more 'Terra Firma' (La. terra: 'earth,' firma: 'solid') addresses the role of storytelling in the interpretation from scientific, professional and academic realms into the public realm, focusing on the meta-narrative - the big picture narrative in which we situate ourselves and our work as architects, landscape architects and urban designers. This narrative must be durable enough to last from generation to generation, while relevant enough to situate our decision making from day to day. The essay brings this framework to bear on soils and the fundamental relevance of terra firma as the dynamic media of interaction between water and geology. Land, not only as territory but as living soil, is the fundamental infrastructure for life – it is the field within which issues of spatial justice are played out in real time, as over geological time.
Every thesis calls for its antithesis, and every revolution prompts a counterrevolutionthis takes... more Every thesis calls for its antithesis, and every revolution prompts a counterrevolutionthis takes place within the same generation as well as across intergenerational oscillations (Gassett 1958, Sennett 1974). Enlightenment thinkers were critical of the Humanist tradition of analogical thinking-their own encyclopedic enthusiasm was intent upon creating a lexicon of the world, an ambition that has been assiduously realized in contemporary Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and empirical attitudes toward industrial agriculture and managerial urbanization. However, languages are comprised of two parts-a lexicon and grammar-and analogical thinking, focused as it is on seeing relationships between parts, is particularly well suited to provide conceptual frameworks for contextual design. To harness the power of polemics, we can anticipate that at least two conceptual paradigms, polarities to one another, are needed at any given moment-and that these are best conceived of as, to paraphrase Sébastien Marot, "opposite, but not exclusive of one another" (Marot 2003). Further, as any given analogy will inevitably prompt justifiable reactions against it, I propose that we work between those two oldest and most enduring architectural analogies: the biological analogy (on growth and form) and the musical analogy (on composition and form). Of these, the biological analogy is clearly in ascendancy-see, for example, Philip Steadman's seminal The Evolution
Research in urbanism series, Apr 27, 2015
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Papers by Matthew Skjonsberg
Historically, environmental ethics were predicated on a certain casual anthropocentrism – characterized by environmental historian Roger Kennedy as “the theology of dominance” – in which nature was regarded as “belonging of right to mankind”. Our contemporary ambitions are informed by the distinction made in a 1992 amendment to the Swiss Constitution stating that the purpose of the constitution is to “ensure the dignity of living beings”, and by the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology’s advocacy of this in their official 2008 report, 'The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants: Moral Consideration of Plants for their Own Sake'. Highlighting change and continuity in the architectural discourse, the essay relates CIAM’s La Sarraz Declaration (1928) and the Charter of Athens (1944) on one hand, and the proto-ecological architectural discourse from John Ruskin’s 'Unto This Last' (1860) and Frank Lloyd Wright’s 'The Living City' (1959) on the other, arriving at contemporary efforts to create “The Charter of Elements” – extending rights to soil, water, and air themselves.
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