Making Sense of Place

In the summer of 2017, Pratt Institute’s Urban Placemaking and Management program held its first-ever symposium on place theory and the practical work of urban placemaking.

“Making Sense of Place: Place Theory and Placemaking in Practice” gathered some of the foremost thinkers and theorists on “place.”

Each of the five distinct sessions is now online:

“Social Science and Design” by Tim Cresswell “Place Equity” by Dr. Setha Low “Placemaking the Displaced” by Sean Anderson “Place as Multiplicity” by Kim Dovey

We’re thrilled to continue to the conversation in this inaugural issue of Place Dialogues. Follow the link below to access the full-length videos.

The first session, “Social Science and Design,” was led by 11-time author, Tim Cresswell. In his presentation, Cresswell delved into the complex history of the illfated Maxwell Street Market, the nation’s largest public market for much of the 20th Century. Through this narrative, Cresswell touches on the memory of place, place segregation and much more. The dialogue is deep dive into place theory. And we should expect no less from this multi-time author. Cresswell is an expert in geographies of mobility and place; he holds a B.A. in geography from University College London in the United Kingdom; an M.S. in geography from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a second Ph.D. in English – creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. Cresswell describes his field of research under his own term, “critical geosophy.”

Dr. Setha Low presented the second session, “Place Equity.” This insightful presentation grappled with the question, “Which spaces are truly public today and which are not?” A widely published author and Director of the Public Space Research Group at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, Dr. Low is one of the nation’s leading researchers on urban anthropology. Her presentation and the following Q&A moderated by a Senior Vice President at Project for Public Spaces, and adjunct professor at Pratt Institute, Meg Walker is not to be missed. The presentation and discussion excellently explored ways in which placemaking can support underserved communities and how a place-based approach provides a catalyst for holistic solutions to inequity.

The third session, “Placemaking the Displaced” was presented by the Associate Curator for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Sean Anderson. In his presentation, Anderson asked how placemaking can support the integration of the millions of displaced people into their host communities. Mr. Anderson’s former student, and Urban Placemaking and Management graduate, Saba Jaberolansar, led the Q&A discussion. “Refugee camps,” Anderson states, “once considered temporary settlements, have become sites through which to examine how human rights intersect with the making of cities.”

Kim Dovey, professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne, led the fourth and final session, “Place as Multiplicity.” Dovey’s research is broadly focused on theories of place and practices of power. Book titles by Dovey include Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form, Fluid City: Transforming Melbourne’s Urban Waterfront, and his 2010 publication, Becoming Places, which, through a broad range of case studies, explores place identities in states of becoming. How, as Dovey writes, “closed becomes open, interior becomes landscape, character becomes caricature, illegal becomes legal, hotel becomes brothel, public becomes private – and vice versa in each case.” A spirited session of closing remarks and audience discussion were led by the Director of the Urban Placemaking and Management program at Pratt Institute, David Burney, Tim Cresswell, and Karen A. Franck.

Watch the full talks online at talks.pratt.edu/category/ Architecture>GCPE