Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm
March 15 - July 16, 1995


University Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley

This exhibition has been designed for you to record your visions and views about the Southside/Telegraph neighborhood of Berkeley, CA. Your ideas and views will provide the base of material on which the future of the neighborhood will be shaped. Please take a moment to respond to the ideas expressed by clicking here, and thank you for your contribution.


Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm, on view at UC Berkeley's University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (UAM/PFA) from March 15 through July 16, 1995, presents eighteen creative, sometimes visionary design projects by some of today's most thoughtful and innovative architects, urban designers, and city planners. These designs are for real (rather than theoretical) projects in eleven cities nationwide--including Los Angeles, New York City, St. Louis, Portland, and Boston--in addition to cities in Canada and Switzerland. The projects address problems of acute concern in today's world--urban sprawl, alternatives to the automobile culture, environmental stress, and the physical and social decay of inner cities. Some of the strategies presented include transportation corridors, mixed-use development, urban infill, pedestrian-oriented communities, retrieval of open spaces, and the recreation of downtown districts. The museum has added three Bay Area projects to Urban Revisions, giving a "local spin" to the presentation, and will also host a series of films and videos, lectures, and community workshops on urban planning topics to promote discussion (see public programs release).

Organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, and curated by MOCA curator Elizabeth A. T. Smith, the exhibition provides insight into the history and process of urban design, and examines the various roles of architect, planner, and the community in the process of shaping the direction and outcome of the design process. The exhibition uses drawings, models, video, and interactive computer programs to illustrate the dynamic relationship between the built environment and the economic and social aspects of the public realm. Altogether, as New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp writes, "This is an important show, and a timely one....Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm is the most important contribution yet offered...to an urgent cultural task: the moral reconstruction of architecture in the aftermath of the 1980s building boom."

Says UAM/PFA designer Nina Zurier, "One of the museum's primary goals in presenting Urban Revisions is to provoke awareness about the impact urban design and planning has on all of us, and to provide some ideas in a visual form about possible strategies and solutions. This has a particular relevance to people in the Bay Area as we consider transportation issues such as alternatives to the Embarcadero freeway in San Francisco, the Cypress extension in Oakland, the expansion of I-80 along the Berkeley waterfront, and the extension of BART to the San Francisco airport. Other urban planning issues in the Bay Area include concerns about the environment and open space; the military base conversions of the Presidio, Treasure Island, and the Alameda Naval Station; as well as the reconstruction of areas devastated by the Loma Prieta earthquake and the Berkeley/Oakland Hills fire."

Innovative Projects Nationwide... The eighteen projects in the exhibition come from such noted architects and designers as Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas, Diana Balmori, Peter Calthorpe, and Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray. Four thematic sections create an interpretive framework for the projects:

Three projects with particular significance to the East Bay have been added to the UAM/PFA presentation of Urban Revisions. In 1955 the city of Berkeley was the first in the United States to develop a master plan. Forty years later, the city is updating this plan and here presents an interactive computer program and video depicting the planning efforts and workshops held during the past two years as part of the plan's development process.

Also, in the lobby of the UAM/PFA Theater Gallery, the Telegraph Area Association and the Southside Task Force present an interactive display of concepts, visions and ideas for the future of the Telegraph/ Southside neighborhood, on view March 1 - April 16 and titled Revisioning Southside/ Telegraph. Maps of the area and photographs of key sites are affixed to the wall and visitors are invited to record their comments and ideas with supplies set up on nearby tables. Community members are also invited to join Thursday evening planning sessions (6:30-7:30 p.m.), led by local designers and community leaders, where they can express their ideas on land use projects and create drawings for specific sites. "This exhibition is a tremendous opportunity for the community to define the future of this area," says Rita Hardin, Executive Director of the Telegraph Area Association.

The third local addition is Urban Diaries, an award-winning improvisational design series created by Walter Hood, a professor of landscape architecture at UC Berkeley. Hood's evocative drawings, models, and diaries of his West Oakland neighborhood combine to suggest innovative strategies for this complex site. "As designers, our attitudes about what we design are based on our values, our experiences, and our aesthetics, " says Hood. "It's important for us to understand the social conditions we're working with. People should be free to come from the backside and to dream... and to make proposals without being judgmental about other people's values and needs." Urban Diaries opens March 4 and continues through May 7 in the museum's Theater Gallery.

Revisioning Cities

Urban Revisions does not attempt to define a movement or provide a formula for the design and redesign of cities. Instead, it tries to function as a laboratory for ideas, ones that inextricably link physical design and social vision, link planners with communities. Exhibition curator Elizabeth A. T. Smith observes that in the future "public and private sectors and the design community will need to give increasing recognition to importance of ...[community] efforts and continue the interactive processes whereby alliances are formed, understanding is gained, and truly public places are made."


Events for Urban Revisions
A calendar of public programs and films; March/April 1995.

City of Berkeley WWW site
with links to many other Bay Area, State, and National Civic Resources.

Community Workshops
at the University Art Museum for Urban Revisions; April/May 1995.

Bibliography
of related research and reading material (including children's books).

Catalog
A 183-page exhibition catalog has been published by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in association with The MIT Press, and featuring essays by exhibition curator Elizabeth A. T. Smith; Mike Davis, M. Patricia Fern‡ndez-Kelly, Richard Sennett; and Gwendolyn Wright ($29.95).

Tour
Urban Revisions opened at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and then moved to the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal. Following its Berkeley presentation from March 15 - July 16, 1995, the exhibition travels to the Des Moines Art Center(November 11, 1995 - February 12, 1996).

Credits
Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm has been organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, curated by Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and designed by REDROTO, an interdisciplinary team led by architect Michael Rotondi and graphic designer April Greiman. It is made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; The Principal Financial Group Foundation, Inc.; Jean and Lewis Wolff; and Melva and Martin Bucksbaum. Additional support for the Berkeley presentation has been provided by Maguire Thomas Partners, Los Angeles, and the UAM/PFA International Fellows. Support for Walter Hood: Urban Diaries has been provided by Marian Greene.