blc's Research Concentration in
URBAN HISTORIES & CONTESTED GEOGRAPHIES
Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures (blc) Collaborative Program
The Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures (blc) collaborative program between UW-Milwaukee's School of Architecture & Urban Planning (SARUP) and UW-Madison's Department of Art History introduces an interdisciplinary research track concentrating on the examination of the physical, cultural, and social aspects of the built environment. The program serves students enrolled on both the UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison campuses. It also involves faculty members on both campuses with diverse research and teaching interests, including urban and architectural history, cultural landscapes, urban and rural vernacular architecture, public history, and environmental studies.
See more on blc here.
blc's Urban Histories & Contested Geographies Consortium
Based at SARUP-UWM, blc's Urban Histories & Contested Geographies Consortium links broadly with academics, researchers and research centers globally. The Consortium is particularly interested in the interactions of Urbanities and Urban Networks with Geographical Conditions (topographies, terrains, sites and landscapes). It is also motivated towards developing ways to map and describe these interactions. Under directed supervision and within the structure of a collaborative research model, it provides doctoral and graduate students with the opportunities to work on FIVE inter-related focus areas of research -
1. Riverine Landscapes and Ecologies
Our studies on Riverine Landscapes and Ecologies strategically describe, re-visit and re-frame ways of critically examining socio-cultural and ecological settings that lie in close proximity to rivers and water bodies. As generative elements that play a critical role in the morphological genesis of settlements and urban networks, these riverine landscapes have profound impact on the macro, intermediate and micro scales of settlement patterns (termed as XL/L/M/S). These ‘scalar or grain’ shifts also determine the morphologies of these places and their socio-cultural-economic processes over time. Our continuing research in the Riverine Landscapes and Ecologies sub-area develops new ways to map and diagram this diversity of scales by specifically combining the notions of the normative (conventional) archive with the ‘unique’ archive of site.
2. Borderlands & Borderscapes
Our emphasis on developing the biographies of Borderlands and Borderscapes challenges prevalent notions of the so-called ‘left-behind’, the inconsequential, and the spaces of abandonment that characterize ‘cultural’ passages and choreographies of peoples in space and time. Liminal spaces evolved and produced at borders/frontiers are viewed as provocative junctures of disciplinary and trans-disciplinary inclusions and exclusions, allowing opportunities for multiple methodological experimentations. In effect, our research on Borderlands and Borderscapes engages not just the formal and spatial nature of these limiting zones, but also interrogates the situations of conflict that potentially result from these contested demarcations.
3. Urban Palimpsests
The Urban Palimpsests Research sub-group examines and sifts multi-layered narratives on urban settings, creating diagrammatic and filmic renditions that explain the generative logic of these settings. The ‘thick descriptions’ of site are leveraged to address unprecedented questions that compel the re-writing of histories and geographies. Within these palimpsests, observations are also directed on the constantly shifting meanings and politics of cultural landscapes, and their perplexing survival (or degeneration) in the context of rapidly-transforming cultures.
4. Morphologies & Typologies
The Morphologies & Typologies research sub-group undertakes detailed examinations of architectural and urban typologies that range in scale from the territory to city, macro to micro, and through the combinations of diverse methodologies derived from the works of multiple scholars, including Muratori. Caniggia, Castex, Conzen and Petruccioli. The exemplar of architecture and cities of the non-Western, specifically the Islamic world, form the core of these studies, and are viewed within a comparative, cross-cultural context wherein these artifacts are characterized by historical process and design idiosyncrasies.
5. Historical Continuity & Change
Our examination of Continuity & Change in past, present and future built environments describes how layers of cultural process morph over time. In looking at the urban cultures of Asia, Eurasia, the Middle East, and the Far East, we interrogate not just “why the past matters”, but also ‘why should it matter’ within the unprecedented scenario of global and place transformations. We collate observations on how designers should react within these contexts, and why their actions would transform the nature of the design profession. The Historical Continuity & Change sub-area also connects to blc’s offerings of Urban Design Studies (at Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and New Orleans).
Admissions to the blc Urban Histories & Contested Geographies Consortium
Interested students and researchers worldwide from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds, including (but not necessarily limited to) architecture, urban history/design/studies, landscape studies, history, geography, anthropology and river hydrologies especially are encouraged to participate in the activities of the Consortium. We welcome applications from dedicated student candidates with excellent Masters Degrees and Post-Doctoral qualifications.
For SARUP's Doctoral Admissions Requirements, Coursework, Credits and PhD Degree details (especially note information pertaining to blc) see here/ For blc Urban Histories & Contested Geographies Consortium Faculty, Students and Associated Scholars, see here
For any additional questions contact Manu P. Sobti at sobti@uwm.edu
