Peter Fend, Sequence of Acts to Build A Gulf, 2011

Please note that due to unfavorable weather conditions this event has been cancelled.

Volume 5 of the Graham-funded New Geographies journal aims to recast the Mediterranean as a contemporary phenomenon and spatialize its region-making processes as a larger geographic entity in the twenty-first century. On April 18, Antonio Petrov, editor-in-chief of Volume 5, considers major topics of the new issue with Sean Keller, Clare Lyster, and Hashim Sarkis in a panel discussion moderated by Stephen J. Ramos. A reception and book signing will follow.

New Geographies is a Harvard University Graduate School of Design journal that aims to examine the emergence of the geographic, to articulate it and bring it to bear effectively on the agency of design. As the synthesizing role that geography aspired to play among the physical, the economic, and the sociopolitical is now being increasingly shared by design, New Geographies encourages designers to reexamine their tools and develop strategies within the design disciplines.

Cofounder and editor of New Geographies, Antonio Petrov is a professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio. He is currently program director at Archeworks in Chicago, founder and editor-in-chief of DOMA, a bilingual magazine published in Macedonia, and the director of WAS, a think tank located in Chicago. Petrov’s research explores new discourses in regionalism and architecture with a focus on the Mediterranean. His book, Superordinary: New Paradigms in Sacred Architecture,is forthcoming. Petrov received his doctoral degree from Harvard University.

Sean Keller (Assistant Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology; Ph.D. Harvard University) is a historian and critic of modern and contemporary architecture. He has taught at Harvard and Yale universities and is a trustee of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. He is a frequent contributor to Artforum and has written for numerous anthologies and journals, including Grey Room, Perspecta, Journal of Architectural Education, and Art Journal. He has two books forthcoming: Semi-Automatic: Motivating Architecture After Modernism (University of Chicago Press) and, with Christine Mehring,Munich ’72: Art and Architecture (Yale University Press).

Clare Lyster, Assistant Professor at University of Illnois at Chicago, is an architect, writer, and educator and founding principal of Claire Lyster Urbanism And Architecture (CLUAA) in Chicago. Her work explores the city from the perspective of its landscape and networks and the implications of this for architectural design. She is editor of Envisioning the Bloomingdale: 5 Concepts (Chicago Architecture Club, August 2009) and 306090 vol. 09 Regarding Public Space, with Cecilia Benites (Princeton Architectural Press, August 2005). Her writings have appeared in many publications including Cabinet, Journal of Landscape Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education and The Landscape Urbanism Reader and her design work has been exhibited locally and internationally including the Art Institute of Chicago. Current work toward a publication exploring the relationship between architecture and logistics was funded by a research grant from the Graham Foundation.

Stephen J. Ramos is an Assistant Professor in the College of Environment and Design at the University of Georgia. He is author of Dubai Amplified: The Engineering of a Port Geography (Ashgate Press,2010), and co-editor of Infrastructure Sustainability and Design (Routledge, 2012). He is a founding editor of the journal New Geographies and editor-in-chief of New Geographies Volume 1: After Zero (GSD/Harvard University Press, 2009). He received his Doctor of Design degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Hashim Sarkis is the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Sarkis is a practicing architect in Cambridge and Lebanon, working on urban and landscape projects. He has authored and edited many books and articles including Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953–1969 (coedited with Eric Mumford, 2008), Circa 1958: Lebanon in the Pictures and Plans of Constantinos Doxiadis (2003), CASE: Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital (2001), and Projecting Beirut (coedited with Peter G. Rowe, 1998).