Free Summer Flick: The Next Urbanism is Not the New Urbanism

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Last month, we brought CNU 18 - New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places to the web. Almost every ticketed and non-ticket session is available online for viewing.

Although attendees of CNU's 2010 Atlanta Congress have received codes for free access to all sessions they attended (and other CNU members can access them at discounted prices), in the spirit of summer, here's an easy way to view one of the webcasts -- just click and you're there. Do so and you'll find a memorable session. At the beginning of "The Next Urbanism is not the New Urbanism," CNU co-founder Andrés Duany warned that the session was not about environmentalism, as rumored. "This is a very unusual session that has to do with intellectual history, has to do with the academy and all sorts of esoteric things. As soon as you get bored or think it is complete bulls---, I will not be hurt if you get out of here really fast." 

He then proceeded to keep an audience of urbanists riveted -- and probably a few members of the academy fuming -- with his views on the ascendance of Landscape Urbanism as a conscious rival of the New Urbanism. Featuring modernist and avant-garde architecture in naturalized settings that purport to be both urban and environmentally sensitive, this emergent model offers star architects a setting that doesn't constrain their freedom of form as does more traditional fabric, while offering landscape architects marquee visibility too. Though concerned about Landscape Urbanism's fast ascent and apparent grip on Harvard and other top design schools, Duany is impressed with canny aspects of the movement, including its sense of purpose and use of alluring imagery, and sees some potential for inter-movement cooperation (to the extent such interest will be reciprocated). Reactions from veteran professors and departmental leaders Doug Kelbaugh and Ellen Dunham-Jones round out the presentation. 

Grab some popcorn and click here to start viewing your movie (which as a webcast features fully synched audio and slideshow tracks):

• The Next Urbanism is not New Urbanism

New Update: Explore the issue deeper by watching a lecture given earlier this year in Charlotte by Landscape Urbanism standard bearer Charles Waldheim, Chair of Landscape Architecture at Harvard. While they take cues from natural systems, do the novel environments advocated by Landscape Urbanists possess the density, walkability and social attraction to serve as sustainable human environments? 

Note to attendees: Everyone who registered for CNU 18 should have received a message with a code to enable viewing of webcasts of all non-ticketed sessions. And those who registered for ticketed New Urbanism 202 seminars, should have received messages with codes to access those webcasts as well. 

If you haven't seen your code, check your inbox (look for "your complimentary code" in the subject line) or e-mail intern@cnu.org to have it sent to you again. Please specify whether you're retrieving codes for non-ticketed sessions, 202s or both.

The CNU 18 webcast library is made possible through support of Green Street Properties. Photo remix from original by Michael Kesler via Flickr.