Park Books International New Titles Spring 2022

The rapid change in our embattled environment, especially in
metropolitan areas, demands a high degree of interdisciplinary
specialist knowledge from city planners, urban researchers,
local politicians, and activists. In practice, however, they find
themselves increasingly confronted with the chaotic and often
contradictory realities of urban life. How can one productively
and creatively handle this globally networked yet also radically
fragmented, and increasingly unequal, urban world?
By understanding urbanism as a pedagogical concept of practice,
renowned researchers and lecturers on the Critical Urbanism
MA program at the University of Basel present innovative
approaches to understanding the city in the 21st century. Their
contributions offer assistance in gaining a differentiated view
of the urban cosmos today and of how to arrive at designs that
meet the manifold demands. They also cast a critical glance at
historical injustices that continue to shape the urban present,
to derive new forms of engagement with an alternative urban
future from this comparison.
Urbanism as pedagogical
concept of practice
Kenny Cupers is a Professor of Architecture
History and Urbanism at the University of Basel.
Emilio Distretti works as a postdoctoral fellow
in architecture history and urbanism at the
University of Basel.
Sophie Oldfield is a Professor of Urbanism and
Chair of the Department Architecture Art Planning
at Cornell University.
Manuel Herz is an architect and Assistant
Professor of Architectural, Urban and Territorial
Planning at the University of Basel.
Laura Nkula Wenz is a lecturer on the Critical
Urbanisms MA program at University of Basel
and at the African Centre for Cities at the University
of Cape Town.
Myriam Perret is an architect who has been
working on the Critical Urbanisms MA program
at the University of Basel until 2020.
ISBN 978-3-03860-282-8