CITY PLANNING EXHIBITS
Urban History Association (UHA)
New York City, NY
26-28 October, 2012
http://uha.udayton.edu/conf.html
Deadline: Friday, February 24
We are hoping to complete a panel on “City Planning Exhibits” for the Urban
History Association conference in October. Generally, we are interested in
the ways in which urban reformers and planners have conceived of the city
as a system that could be rationalized and contained with proper planning,
as well as the ways these ideas were exhibited in public forums like
museums and cultural institutions. Strikingly, city plans — at least in
the first half of the 20th century — were often considered to be partly
scientific and partly artistic. This may contribute to the fact that
planning exhibits were shared in a range of cultural venues and drew broad
audiences.
The two papers we currently have are on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City
and Pittsburgh plans, which were exhibited in Pittsburgh at the request of
some of the advocates of the “Pittsburgh Renaissance,” and the 1908
“Congestion Exhibit” held in New York at the American Museum of Natural
History, which helped strengthen the argument in New York City for a master
city plan. We welcome topics that draw from interdisciplinary sources to
add depth to our panel.
Please submit a brief abstract of your topic to us off-list
(ramato@gc.cuny.edu and misaacson@gc.cuny.edu, kdryan@buffalo.edu) by
Friday, February 24.
Rebecca Amato and Mariel Isaacson
PhD candidates, History
The Graduate Center, City University of New York