Plenaries
Opening Plenary*
Thursday, July 10, 2008
4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Grand Ballroom Salon, 7th Floor
The Plan of Chicago: New Perspectives
From the day it was issued in 1909, The Plan of Chicago by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett took its place as a landmark in urban planning. In this panel we will hear from Carl Smith, Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English & American Studies at Northwestern University, author of the highly regarded book, The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City (2006), which won the Lewis Mumford Prize for Best Book in Planning History, given by the Society of American City, Regional, and Planning History and leading author of an interpretive digital website on the plan for the Encyclopedia of Chicago and Kristen Schaffer, Associate Professor of Architecture at North Carolina State University and author of a ground-breaking analysis of the Burnham Plan in the reprint of the Burnham plan published by Princeton Architectural Press in 1993. Commentary will be provided by Neil Harris, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and one of the nation’s foremost scholars of American culture.
*also available to ACSP/AESOP delegates
Plenary Session
Friday, July 11, 2008
1 to 2:30 p.m.
Grand Ballroom Salon, 7th Floor
Alexander Garvin
Keynote speaker Alexander Garvin is one of the country’s most prominent urbanists. He has had a long and distinguished career in urban planning, real estate, public service and education. He held prominent positions in five New York City administrations, served as chief planner for the city’s 2012 Olympics bid and led the efforts that culminated in the competition for Ground Zero after 9/11. He has been teaching for 40 years at Yale University and is the author of the highly regarded book The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t. As head of his recently organized firm, Alex Garvin & Associates, he has done ground-breaking work in planning for the urban public realm.
For years, as he has done his own planning work, Mr. Garvin has been fascinated by the careers of important planners from the past and what they can tell us about planning today, particularly planning for the public realm- everything from sustainability to community participation to the demands of generations yet unborn. He will present some approaches to implementing a successful 21st century agenda that can be found in the work of Georges-Eugène Haussmann in 19th century Paris, Daniel Burnham in turn of the 20th century Chicago, Robert Moses in mid-century New York, and Edmund Bacon in later 20th century Philadelphia.
Plenary Session
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Grand Ballroom Salon, 7th Floor
Helen Meller
One of the traditions of the IPHS conference is presentation of the Gordon Cherry Memorial Lecture in honor of the founder of the organization. This year's Cherry lecture will be presented by Professor Helen Meller, School of History, University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Meller is currently Editor of Planning Perspectives and serves as Treasurer of IPHS. Her talk is entiled, "Imagining Culture and the City in Planning History: Some Reflections on the Public and Private.