Lewis Mumford

This paper has its origins a lecture given at the invitation of The Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in May 2009. It reflects the thinking that finds fuller expression in my book Patrick Geddes’s Intellectual Origins (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). Geddes was one of the key thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His integrated ecological and cultural vision had international impact. Yet despite the fact that his Outlook Tower and Ramsay Garden are prominent and intriguing features of the Edinburgh skyline, the distinctively Scottish intellectual context of his thinking has not been understood. In this paper, which I have taken the opportunity of revise, I place Geddes with respect to his own intellectual background, a background which had interdisciplinarity at its heart. I explore the relevance of that generalist view for his achievements local, national and international. An interview about the book can be found here: https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/04/02/interview-with-murdo-macdonald-author-of-patrick-geddess-intellectual-origins/. Full contents list can be found here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-patrick-geddes-s-intellectual-origins.html

In March 2005, I presented a paper at the European Academy of Design conference in Bremen,
Germany.  It introduced the concept of the ‘natural design movement’ and discussed the
relationship between eco-literacy, ethics, and aesthetics within the context of natural design. 
The paper proposed:  “Eco-literacy – a detailed understanding of nature as a complex
interacting, creative process in which humanity participates – results in a shift in perception
towards an ecological ethics and aesthetics of participation that considers cultural, social and
ecological, as well as economic value” (Wahl, 2005b, p.1).  Such an approach tries to optimise
human patterns of participation in natural process in such a way that it contributes to the health
and sustainability of the overall system.

The Natural Design Movement shares an ecological worldview.  The movement unites diverse disciplines
ranging from ecological design, industrial and urban ecology, sustainable architecture and bioregional
planning to ecological economics, eco-literate education and green politics.  Furthermore it considers the
philosophical, sociological and psychological implications of the ecological worldview.  Design in the 21st
century will be grounded in eco-literacy and aspire toward community-based designs that are adapted to the
specific conditions of a particular place and culture (Wahl, 2005b, p.1).

The Natural Design Movement encompasses such diverse fields as ecological product-, process-
and institutional design, sustainable architecture, community-, urban- and bioregional planning,
industrial ecology, and ecological engineering, but also political systems of governance,
ecological economics, education for sustainability, renewable resource based technologies and
energy production, as well as aspects of bionics, eco-technology, and green chemistry.  All of
which will be discussed in more detail in chapters four and five.  As I have already alluded to in
chapter two, the natural design movement is united through a salutogenic intentionality behind
design on all scales of the fundamentally interconnected whole in which we participate.

The perception, preservation and restoration of the condition of systemic health, or dynamic stability, are
the underlying strategies of all sustainable designs.  Salutogenesis, or health generation at the scale of local
and global ecosystems and social systems has to become the priority of design in the 21st Century if we
want to create a sustainable global civilization through diverse, locally adapted cultures of co-operation
(Wahl, 2005b, pp.15-16).

This chapter suggests that such a design response to the current crisis of unsustainability is
already emerging, represented by a diverse, international movement which is as yet not fully
integrated and conscious of its own existence.  This thesis hopes to facilitate the process of
networking that is necessary to unite this trans-disciplinary, scale-linking movement by
providing a generalised map of its various contributories.
This chapter begins with a brief history of ecologically conscious design and introduces
some of the key visionaries who have prepared the ground for its emergence.  It starts with an
acknowledgement of the important influence of traditional and indigenous knowledge on
appropriate design; and highlights the influence Sir Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford,
Buckminster Fuller, Ian McHarg and Victor Papanek on the natural design movement.
Subchapter two discusses the concept of natural design within the context of the shift in
perception facilitated by an ecological worldview.  It suggests that a participatory understanding
of humanity’s involvement in natural process dissolves the apparent paradox of natural design
which itself is simply the result of employing an epistemology of Cartesian dualism.
Subchapter three explores the relationship between ecological literacy, an expanded
horizon of empathy and self-identification, and ethical and aesthetic perception and judgement. 
It offers a more detailed exploration of how the emerging natural design movement also
engenders a fundamental reconsideration of our understanding of ethics and aesthetics.
Subchapter four describes how the various members of the natural design movement
have approached nature as a source of knowledge, wisdom and insight that deeply informs their
design process.  It discusses and exemplifies a new way of learning from nature.
And finally, subchapter five continues with the theme of responsible co-design of
humanity’s active participation in natural processes, by exploring the notion of co-design of
complex systems, which serves as a general introduction to the scales of sustainable design and
the complex scale-linking issues that are explored in much more detail in chapters four and five.
...

Quelle est la nature du travail ? Oui ou non est‐il le propre du phénomène humain ? Offre‐t‐il vraiment un sens à notre existence terrestre, voire à ce qui pourrait lui faire suite ? Seule une approche anthropologique articulant les éléments historiques et critiques appropriés permet de comprendre son rôle actuel, son histoire, et son futur. Une telle visée (certains parleraient de hauteur de vue) dévoile instantanément les enjeux et dessine l'horizon de l'action politique au XXI e siècle. Si cette visée était cultivée citoyennement, elle indiquerait comment et pourquoi créer les situations qui s'imposent pour tenir grand compte des nouvelles réalités de la guerre des classes. Lorsque Winston Churchill promet à ses concitoyens « du sang, du labeur, des larmes et de la sueur 2 », il ignore probablement qu'au même moment le gouvernement nazi prétend pour sa part que « le travail rend libre 3 ». Son ton oraculaire, quasiment biblique, donne à penser que la condition humaine ne peut s'envisager en dehors des catégories de châtiment et de pénitence. Nous allons le voir, il y a toujours une théologie du travail à l'oeuvre dans les errances historiques de l'homo sapiens. Afin de simplifier la discussion, il était inévitable de se concentrer sur une histoire et il était expédient de penser l'histoire européenne. Bien que cette double réduction apparaisse de plus en plus inacceptable aux chercheurs avertis de la richesse des cultures, elle est tout à fait expédiente dans le cadre d'une enquête portant sur les liens incestueux existant entre technique, technoscience, aliénation et impérialisme. 2 « I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. » (Winston Churchill, lors de son premier discours devant la Chambre des communes en tant que Premier ministre du Royaume‐Uni, le 13 mai 1940 ; voir http://www.winstonchurchill.org.) 3 Le bon mot « Arbeit macht frei » fut affiché à l'entrée de nombreux camps de concentration en juin 1940, à l'instigation du Général SS Theodor Eicke.

Lewis Mumford argued that the physical design of cities and their economic functions were secondary to their relationship to the natural environment and to the spiritual values of human community. The city, he writes, is “a theater of social action,” and everything else – art, politics, education, and commerce serve only to make this drama more richly significant. What kind of spaces set the background for an occasion to occur. Are spaces merely collection of objective elements brought together to support a certain function or can they be designed in a way so they may become part of subjective experiences.

Η παρούσα έρευνα σκοπό έχει να ανακαλύψει και να κατανοήσει τους λόγους για τους οποίους ο άνθρωπος της πόλης σήμερα απαρνιέται ό,τι αυτή του έχει προσφέρει και καταφεύγει σε μία καθημερινότητα με πολύ λιγότερες επιλογές, σε μία οικιστική κοινότητα πολύ περιορισμένη, σε μία ζωή στην ύπαιθρο.

Η δομή με την οποία διαρθρώνεται η παρούσα εργασία ακολουθεί την παράθεση των δύω τάσεων, την λατρεία της μητρόπολης στις αρχές του 19ου αιώνα και την εγκατάλειψη αυτής σχεδόν έναν αιώνα αργότερα.  Στη συνέχεια γίνεται αναφορά σε διάφορες απόπειρες κατοίκησης της φύσης με αποκορύφωμα το φαινόμενο των κοινοβίων των hippies του '60 και τέλος παρουσιάζεται η τάση της φυγής από τον ελληνικό αστικό χώρο και ο τρόπος που αντιμετωπίστηκε η ύπαιθρος από τον Έλληνα κατά την επάνοδό του σε αυτή.

In this book I shall develop the urban regional thought of Lewis Mumford in terms of a civic environmentalism concerned with the achievement of a public life fitted to the contours of an ecological civilization. I shall examine Mumford’s conception of ecological regionalism, democratic planning and the regional garden city as giving us both the ideal of a decentralized, balanced and humanly-scaled eco-public, and the means to achieve it. I shall show how Mumford sought to reconstruct public community aesthetically, politically and ecologically, integrating the urban and rural environments in the process. Defining Mumford’s view in terms of civic environmentalism, I connect the task of ecological restoration and preservation to a reinvigorated public life constituted by a democratic pluralism and civic mindedness. I will argue that the writings of Lewis Mumford on the garden city and regional planning suggest a conception of Ecopolis sustained by a vision of civic environmentalism. I will show how Mumford developed a planning intervention that not only countered the destructive consequences of over-urbanization but served also strengthen the civic capacity of the community and infuse political culture with an active democratic content. Mumford’s ecological regionalism  combines planning, design and a biocentric understanding of natural processes within a politically grounded and civic-minded environmentalism. His work expresses a commitment to restore the health of democratic public life in the process of tackling the problems of urban life. I will therefore develop Mumford’s idea of regional planning and ecological regionalism in terms of a political or civic concern with environmentalism, in the process lifting the question of the human relation to nature out of academic confines and locating it in the public realm. In fine. Mumford envisions an Ecopolis constituted and sustained by a civic environmentalism.

in Le Grand soir, 30 06 2013

Une société sans guerre(s) est peu probable. Une
société capitaliste sans guerres est impossible.On
peut le montrer très facilement en systématisant
les elements d’analyses parfois epars que l’on retrouve chez Orwell et Mumford, mais également chez des auteurs contemporains comme Noam Chomsky, Jacques Pauwels et Annie Lacroix-Riz. (Afin de proposer une démonstration courte, je n’examine pas la définition du capitalisme par la "croissance".)

in René Lebrun, Julien De Vos et É. Van Quickelberghe (éds), Deus Unicus. Actes du colloque « Aux origines du monothéisme et du scepticisme religieux » organisé à Louvain-la-Neuve les 7 et 8 juin 2013 par le Centre d’histoire des Religions Cardinal Julien Ries [Cardinalis Julien Ries et Pierre Bordreuil in memoriam], Turnhout, Brepols, coll. Homo Religiosus série II, 14, 2015, pp. 247-260

The paper introduces to the stakes of the shamanic interpretation of the Paleolithic parietal art in five steps: first, it sketches the history of the discovery of Paleolithic cave paintings; second it briefly reviews the scientific vulgate on the matter; then the potentialities of ethnological comparativism are displayed and the overlapping existing between shamanism lato sensu and the homo religiosus ethos perused. In conclusion, we examine WILLIAM JAMES and A. N. WHITEHEAD respective import.

ISBN-10: 9383243120
ISBN-13: 978-9383243129

20th Century Compulsions
Modern Indian Architecture from the MARG Archives
edited by Mustansir Dalvi

Published by MARG, 2016

The spirit of architecture completely transformed in the 20th century and MARG magazine, founded in 1946, was at the forefront of documenting that change. The leading lights of architecture in the world wrote significant short texts for MARG that set forth not just an agenda for architecture that would shape the new India, but the habitats of a new social order. This anthology comprises a selection of these essays, as relevant now as they were when they first appeared.

With writings by
Mulk Raj Anand
Durga Bajpai
Andrew Boyd
Le Corbusier
B V Doshi
Jane Drew
Patrick Geddes
Otto Koenigsberger
Percy Marshall
Eric Mendelsohn
Louis Mumford
Richard Neutra
Emily Polk
&
A B Schwarz

"La visée de cette étude se résume en peu de mots : abandonné à lui-même, le système économico-politico-social actuel est condamné et son trépas sera douloureux, à moins qu’une réforme profonde ne survienne. Les pistes de réflexion qu’il rassemble dans cette étude trouvent leur origine dans deux systèmes de pensée complémentaires : la philosophie organique du dernier Whitehead (1861-1947) et le matérialisme dialectique de Marx (1818-1883).
Poliment mis entre parenthèses comme une double aberration historique, leurs travaux ont pourtant déterminé les balises conceptuelles de tous les problèmes contemporains : les racines et les enjeux de la technoscience, du matérialisme, du capitalisme et de l’existence démocratique dans une biosphère en faillite, au propre comme au figuré… De plus, ce balisage s’alimente d’une pensée processuelle et pragmatique qui est tout à fait à l’ordre du jour.
Ainsi, à la lumière des travaux de ces deux penseurs, Michel Weber aborde la thèse simple suivante : la civilisation occidentale mondialisée a atteint un point de rupture qui ne tardera plus à se manifester sous une forme insurrectionnelle, à moins que des réformes radicales soient promptement mises en oeuvre. Il en propose principalement trois : déprofessionnaliser la politique, recentrer la société sur les communautés et restaurer le droit régalien de battre monnaie.
En somme, il s’agit ici de dessiner une réponse politique à une crise globale systémique qui est radicalement (à sa racine) politique."

En el marco de los debates sobre “el futuro del trabajo” y/o “el trabajo del futuro”, nos proponemos abordar la cultura del trabajo en el marco de la sociedad informacional, entendida como el orden social emergente que deriva de las nuevas pautas de organización tecnosocial, con expresiones propias en cada cultura y en cada disciplina. Particularmente abordaremos las mutaciones de la percepción del tiempo y el espacio en los nuevos modelos productivos, y el modo en que este emergente epocal se discontinúa de la modernidad tardía para impactar en la cultura del trabajo y en las organizaciones inerciales del movimiento obrero organizado. Para esto adoptaremos la perspectiva interseccional, ya que —según entendemos— es un recurso teórico-metodológico que presenta algunas ventajas comparativas para abordar, desarrollar, debatir y visibilizar esta problemática.

Too often the history of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is wrenched out of the history of technology and presented as something altogether separate and therefore different, rendering previous analyses irrelevant. However, there are sufficient analytical tools to hand without the continual invention of new paradigms to understand the current stage of technological advance. To support this contention, in this article, the continuing relevance of Lewis Mumford is explored. Mumford’s discussion of the megalopolis and the emergence of the invisible city as its most developed state make a direct link with the networked information society, establishing a link between the information society and Mumford’s analysis of the previous history of technology. At the centre of Mumford’s discussion of this history is the dialectic interaction of authoritarian and democratic technics. Mumford’s notion of technics stresses that technologies can not be divided from the social relations in which they appear. In the information society, this dialectical pair map onto the twin dynamics of enclosure and disclosure. The former dynamic represents the control of information through commodification and marketization, the latter the recognition of the empowering and emancipatory qualities of ICTs. Up until now, discussions of the information society have regarded only one or other dynamic as normal, whereas utilizing Mumford’s insight, the contradictory character of the information society can be theorized without rendering the second dynamic abnormal. Thus, the article concludes that recourse to Mumford’s ideas, to re-embed ICTs in the history of technology, allows a more nuanced and fruitful treatment of current developments in information society.

There are two images of Sir. Patrick Geddes that have been received by subsequent generations, Geddes the Liberal and Geddes the Mystic. This paper examines the ways in which revived sensitivity to the wisdom and limitations of Geddes the Mystic may help facilitate the process of transforming human-nature relations and staving off the cultural and ecological genocide of Modernity.

This paper addresses works and archives of transnational anarchist intellectual Marie-Louise Berneri (1918-1949), author of a neglected but very insightful history of utopias and of their spaces. Extending current literature on anarchist geographies, utopianism and on the relation between geography and the humanities, I argue that a distinction between authoritarian and libertarian utopias is key to understanding the political relevance of the notion of utopia, which is also a matter of space and geographical imagination. Berneri’s criticisms to utopia were eventually informed by notions of anti-colonialism and anti-authoritarianism, especially referred to her original critique of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. Then, I argue for a connection between anarchist, humanistic, cultural and historical approaches to geography, to extend the empirical and theoretical reach of the discipline and its relations with the ‘humanities’. This paper likewise contributes to recent scholarship on transnational anarchism, arguing that the anarchist tradition cannot be understood outside its transnational, cosmopolite and multilingual networks and concrete practices: therefore, only relational, contextual and space-sensitive approaches can make sense of its specificity.
Este articulo encara los trabajos y archivos de la militante anarquista transnacional Maria Luisa Berneri (1918-1949), autora de un estudio poco conocido pero muy significativo sobre las historias de las utopías y sus espacios. Contribuyendo para literatura actual sobre geografías anarquistas, utopismo y sobre la relación entre la geografía y las ‘humanidades’, afirmo que una distinción entre utopías libertarias y utopías autoritarias es esencial para comprender la importancia política del concepto de utopía, que es también un asunto de espacio y de imaginación geográfica. Las críticas de Berneri a la utopía se inspiraron de su anticolonialismo y antiautoritarismo, focalizado especialmente en su original critica de los regímenes totalitarios del siglo veinte. Enseguida, propongo una conexión entre abordajes anarquistas, humanistas, culturales e históricos de la geografía para ampliar el campo empírico y teórico de la disciplina y de sus relaciones con las humanidades. Este articulo contribuye también a las investigaciones recientes sobre el anarquismo transnacional, afirmando que la tradición anarquista no puede ser comprendida fuera de sus redes transnacionales, multilingües y cosmopolitas y de sus practicas concretas. Entonces, solo lecturas contextuales, relacionales y sensibles al espacio pueden dar censo a la especificidad del anarquismo.

J.G. Ballard's The Concentration City and Billennium are both short stories that depict an utterly dystopian vision about the future of urban development. The Concentration City provides a glimpse of an overgrown, gigantic city with no limits whereas Billennium presents a perspective of the burden of living in an overpopulated society. Both stories are projections of the megalopolis as coined by philosophers Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford. These thinkers have outlined the notion of megalopolis as the final stage of development before necropolis, city of the dead. This paper explores how and in what ways Ballard's vision of megalopolis is reflected in The Concentration City and Billennium. To that end, the effects of megalopolis on the individual, nature, society and government institutions are revealed. In addition, the paper also demonstrates that human liberty is restricted on all accounts as a consequence of the conditions created by the megalopolis. Finally, as put forward by Geddes and Mumford, regionalism is proposed as an alternative to prevent excessive urban development which is destined to lead to megalopolis and ultimately, collective downfall.

Catterall's (2018) editorial note for issue 22.2 of CITY, like the final footnote in Barnesmoore's (2018a) editorial for the same issue, raises the question of 'what/whose order is to be asserted in the city'. This question leads us back to the age old question of authority in social, political, economic, religious, etc. systems—who or what has the authority to assert the order of things (in the city and beyond)? This question of authority, as noted by Springer (2014), is all too often understood in the banally hierarchical terms of the Artificial Worldview—which accepts the order of (human) nature as evil and views the production of social, political, economic, religious, etc. order as subsequently dependent upon hierarchical domination (Barnesmoore 2018b)—and the elite class, the state 1 , the legal system, the police, 'bigger scales' and other such edifices of the Artificial Worldview and its conception of order through hierarchical dominion are thus (oft unproblematically) accepted as the natural authority from which the order of things (in the city and beyond) is derived. I have been asked by a reviewer to " set up the critique of urban theory and develop it using examples " , and have done my best to fulfill this request, but, moving from Foucault's insightful and oft repeated observation that the power of what is said is often most clearly expressed in what is therefore not said, my critique of Urban and Geographical theory and the ontological-epistemological debates waged therein is rooted less in what has been said than in what has not been said. My critique is rooted in the lack of engagement with questions of worldview (of the nexus of cosmology and ontology) and the subsequent, unproblematic acceptance of the Colonial Modernist incarnation of the dominant, domineering Artificial Worldview (Four Arrows and Narvaez 2016; Barnesmoore 2018b) implied therein.

Introductory Note: this nomadic exploration was developed through the nomadic exploration of the first of three lists I am reading for my comprehensive examinations… I'm feeling a bit tense. That's the design. Oh the unhealthy nonsense of the University, the absurd assumptions about human nature that say pressure, stress, competition, hierarchical domination (in the form of grading) and other such artificial means of manufacturing 'need' and 'urgency' are necessary to make me work hard, the actual barrier to creative expression this paradigm forms—but here I sit, fingers playing the music of the English language across my keyboard, trying to simply ignore the absurdity of the disciplinary structure known as 'comps' (there is a certain sense of dread that flitters across many eyes when this term is raised) so that I can focus my attention on the research that I will be conducting in this artificially limited timeslot. This first of my three 'comps lists' seeks to answer four related questions: 1. How are human-nature relations and the attainment of virtue through human-nature relations understood in the classical urban theory of Geddes and Mumford? How is technology and technological power seen as mediating the relationship between humans and nature?; 2. What is the pedagogical function of cities as envisioned in the work of Geddes and Mumford?; 3. What is the function of Utopian thought in Geddes and Mumford's urban theory?; 4. What is the role of spirituality and mysticism in Geddes and Mumford's conceptions of cities and humanity's conscious-cultural evolution?

in Legrandsoir.info/pouvoir-sexe-et-climat.html 26 novembre 2017
Michel WEBER

« Les meilleurs livres [politiques] sont ceux qui vous disent ce que vous savez déjà. »-(Orwell, 1949) Pourquoi le Trône de fer — dont le titre original est A Song of Ice and Fire — de George Raymond Richard Martin (1948–), et tout particulièrement son adaptation par HBO (« Home Box Office », une chaîne de télévision payante US-américaine), rencontre-t-il un succès quasiment planétaire ? À cause de la créativité de l'auteur, magistralement mise en image par des producteurs richement inspirés ? Parce que la vie « post-moderne » suscite, plus que jamais, un besoin de fantastique, de rêve et de mystère ? Ou plutôt car cette fiction politique agit comme révélateur de la crise que nous traversons ? Une crise dont les ramifications apparaissent totalement imprévisibles, et qui met en évidence les vices de la finance, la vacuité du politique et la factualité du changement climatique. Les meilleurs livres politiques — écrivait en substance Orwell — sont « ceux qui vous disent ce que vous savez déjà [1] ». Il s'agit cependant d'une connaissance particulière : je sais, et je sais que je sais, mais, en même temps, je ne veux pas le savoir et, parfois, je ne peux pas savoir que je sais. Un bon livre nous réconcilie donc avec nous-mêmes et avec notre préhension consciente, et appréhension inconsciente, du monde alentour. Cette connaissance est ici double : elle porte sur les événements contemporains, et sur la nature du pouvoir et de son exercice. Martin met en scène dans son roman deux menaces génériques, qu'il emprunte à une ancienne mythologie germanique : la glace et le feu. Le spectre septentrional (« Ice ») est constitué par la venue de l'hiver, de ses malheurs, de ses monstres froids (les « White Walkers » ou « Others »), et surtout de ses conséquences géopolitiques : les flux de réfugiés climatiques et économiques (les « wildlings » ou « Free Folk ») que Jon Snow cherche à canaliser. Le grondement méridional (« Fire ») s'origine dans la soif démocratique des esclaves des « cités libres » (Orwell serait heureux de cette pirouette), attisée par Daenerys Targaryen, et dans ses dragons. De ce point de vue, le récit de Martin, aussi complexe soit-il, est structuré par un axe qui traverse King's Landing et qui unit Jon Snow et Daenerys Targaryen (qui sont du reste parents [2]). De plus, le pouvoir a été usurpé deux fois à Westeros : il a été confisqué au peuple et pris aux héritiers légitimes (ou aux derniers en date à se prétendre légitimes).

The purpose of this paper is to establish that Lewis Mumford’s historical and philosophical writings were heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. It is argued that Freudian ideas and concepts played a foundational role in the construction of Mumford’s views on the nature and function of mind, culture and history, which in turn founded his views on the relationship between technology and society. Indeed, it is argued that a full understanding of Mumford’s technological writings cannot be achieved until one has grasped their psychoanalytic influence. To this end, this paper will reconstruct the psychological views of Lewis Mumford and indicate how they draw upon and modify Freudian theory. It will then be shown how Mumford’s theory of the psyche interacts with Mumford’s own concept of the idolum. This interaction, I will argue, considerably underpins Mumford’s holistic views on the relationship between society and the individual and between the internal and external world and will require us to reconsider our understanding of Mumford’s philosophy of technology, particularly with regards to his descriptions of monotechnics and biotechnics, the authoritarian and democratic technological forms. It will be argued that for Mumford the division in technics corresponds to a division in the human psyche, and indeed arises from it. Not only will an appreciation of Mumford’s Freudian influence alter our understanding of Mumford’s technological writings in general, in particular it can enable us to better comprehend the reasoning behind Mumford’s recommended method of resistance to the modern power complex of the megamachine. Such a revised understanding of Mumford’s philosophy also undercuts any attempts to characterize his position as being a technological determinist one. Rather, his philosophy of technology is better understood as a form of technological voluntarism.

South African architecture is currently searching for a unique identity and character. Globalisation, amongst others, contributed directly to an absence of architectural character. The result is a degree of placelessness in the South African built environment. In contrast, the Critical Regionalist theory resists the homogenisation in the built environment. This is frequently achieved by acknowledging the region’s potential, while re-interpreting external cultural influences. The resultant building design aims to be appropriate to its specific time and place. This notion promotes a design method focusing on analysing architecture. This paper graphically analyses four custom-designed South African houses at the hand of the characteristics and principles of Critical Regionalism in an attempt to identify the underlying traits of local architectural identity. Although only four case studies were analysed, the research confirms the existence of an architectural response that meets the criteria of Critical Regionalism, within the selected population. Consequently, it is argued that South African architecture could hold a regional and global relevance that extends beyond imagery only. This paper briefly reviews the requirements of Critical Regionalism by referring to pertinent theoretical contributors and advancing a new model for South Africa. This is translated into the graphic matrix used for analysing four custom-designed South African houses. As part of any design process, the architectural practitioner could follow this analytical attempt at analysing relevant South African architecture.

Avui, les ciutats globals són, més que mai, el centre d’una ingent activitat mercantil, financera, creativa i religiosa. Podríem afegir que les ciutats són a l’ull de l’huracà d’allò que anomenem progrés, que és l’hegemonia indiscutible d’aquest nou paradigma que anomenem tecnocientífic (Campillo, 1999). Ha estat aquest nou univers simbòlic que ha fet raonable la fiscalització obsessiva dels carrers i les places, la persecució i el setge de tota aquella població no productiva, amb la intenció de desplaçar-la fora d’un espai de la ciutat que es volia destinar intensivament i monolíticament a la producció de riquesa per a oligopolis, financers, usos especulatius o turístics.

Syllabus of a course for graduate students of 60 hours (namely 20 3-hours lessons).

Starting from the complex historical-theoretical evolution of the topic “technology” (i.e. from the idea of techné in the ancient Greek to modern and contemporary idea of Machbarkeit/makeability), the course aims to  highlight the importance of  such a topic as philosophical question.
Martin Heidegger’s interpretation of technology will emerge as the fundamental point of reference for the idea itself of a philosophy of technology. At the same time the course will deal with the problem of Heidegger’s legacy, that is the current options and future possibilities for the philosophy of technology.
The course aims to provide the students with the basic conceptual tools in order to deal with the topic “technology” as crucial “hub” of the philosophical thought (especially with reference to its modern and contemporary stages). For this purpose a particular attention will be given to the direct confrontation with the “classics”, chosen as reference literature.

The framework for this paper is taken from the one that Mumford outlined in Technics and Civilisation (1934). Mumford distinguishes between three successive phases of development. The eotechnic phase is the age of wood, wind and water; the paleotechnic phase is the age of coal and iron; the neotechnic phase is the age of electricity and alloys. To these three phases, Mumford would later add another to account for the development of nuclear power and the silicon chip. The implications of this new phase of development are profound. For Mumford conceived the domination of machine culture as representing the denial of the organic and the living. With the development of nuclear power, this culture had now reached its highest expression in the ‘cult of death’. Mumford considered the ever looming threat of nuclear war to be the ‘supreme drama of a completely mechanised society’ (FTC 1986:58).

A critical awareness of the destructive potentials of technology does not induce Mumford to repudiate technology. Mumford is clear that the solution to the problems of the present do not lie in resurrecting a past mode of life. Rather, Mumford calls for the ‘rebuilding of the individual personality and the collective group, and the re-orientation of all forms of thought and social activity toward life’ (FTC 1986:182). Mumford thus advocates the profound transformation of contemporary society and culture to achieve an alternative future from within existing levels of development.

Mumford’s argument is premised upon what he calls a ‘basic communism’. This would ‘normalize’ production and consumption so as to satisfy basic needs and implies the complete equality of basic income. Individual wants which extend to more than this would have to be satisfied by direct effort. ‘Basic communism’ entails the obligation for all to share in the work of the community. There is also an emphasis upon the quality of work in this argument. Work is to be attractive, performed by an amateur rather than by an automaton. ‘Not work, not production for its own sake or for the sake of ulterior profit, but production for the sake of life and work as the normal expression of a disciplined life, are the marks of a rational economic society’ (FTC 1986:159).

Lo studio si occupa di ricostruire l'interpretazione che il sociologo Lewis Mumford ha dato, nel corso principalmente degli anni '30, dell'opera di Oswald Spengler. Lo studio si avvale di risorse bibliografiche di Mumford mai tradotte in Italia.
(Il testo seguente riproduce, con successive modifiche stilistiche, la Tesi di laurea triennale discussa dall'autore nell'A.a. 2010/2011 all'Università degli Studi di Torino. Si tratta di un testo non pubblicato che desideravo in ogni caso render pubblico, vista anche l'indigenza di opere e ricerche sull'argomento. SI ricorda che una Tesi non pubblicata è comunque citabile, con l'accortezza di indicare, oltre all'autore, anche l'anno di discussione e l'Università.)

L’uso dei nostri sensi, i rapporti tra di essi, il modo cioè in cui sentiamo, percepiamo e facciamo esperienza del mondo è connaturato all’esistenza stessa dei media. Ogni medium nasce, infatti, per mediare il nostro rapporto col mondo, e così facendo finisce per modificare il mondo in sé e noi stessi con esso. È vocazione dei media, inoltre, assumere la forma di un sistema. I media cioè si accumulano e si ibridano così da for-mare un insieme complesso di relazioni e processi in continuo divenire, in cui noi stessi siamo coinvolti.
Partendo da tali premesse, questo articolo si propone di illustrare una visione sistemica dei media, all’interno della quale è possibile definire i media come ambienti, in ossequio all’ambito di studi, perlopiù nordamericano e ancora poco conosciuto in Italia, che va sotto il nome di media ecology, laddove il termi-ne “ecologia”, utilizzato in senso etimologico, rimanda appunto allo studio sistematico dell’ambiente dei media.
Infine, si tenta di dimostrare la validità e l’efficacia di tale approccio “ecologico” nel comprendere il com-plesso intreccio di relazioni e processi attraverso cui le tecnologie influenzano il modo cui sentiamo, per-cepiamo e facciamo esperienza del mondo, ovvero l’ambito proprio dell’Estetica dei media.