Dean's Journal
In an effort to better understand the challenges to the people of Louisiana and Mississippi resulting from Hurricane Katrina, I read John Barry's marvelous Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (Simon & Schuster, 1997). The book provides compelling insights into our efforts to "control" the Mississippi River and the interplay between race and class, as well as nature and the built environment in our culture. I recommend Rising Tide to anyone interested in the future of the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf Coast.
Another fascinating read about the relationship between politics and the built environment is Deyan Sudjic's evocative The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World (The Penguin Press, 2005). I'm reviewing it for the American Planning Association. Deyan Sudjic explores the power of architecture and the architecture of power. I highly recommend it as well.
Books have been very much on my mind the past two weeks because I attended a Center for American Places Board Meeting in Santa Fe, February 17-19. The Center publishes books on architectural history, landscape studies, urbanism, cultural geography, and photography. Our current best seller is Peirce Lewis' New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape (Center for American Places, 2003). In addition, I learned from Island Press that my book with Ian McHarg, To Heal the Earth, is being published in paperback.
Before flying to Santa Fe, I drove to College Station for the Aggie Landscape Architecture Workshop after our internal ULI Hines Urban Design Competition jury. Our internal competition is supported by the Cogburn Family. Betsy Cogburn and Meg Cogburn Wilson [B.Arch. '98] attended the jury. A&M landscape architecture and planning chair Forster Ndubisi hosted a reception for workshop speakers, faculty, and students Thursday night at his home. I spoke on Friday morning, February 17, in College Station. Four of our Master of Landscape Architecture students participated as did students and faculty from Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Perú. Several leading firms--including Gensler, SWA, EDSA, and TBG Partners--also were involved in the workshop.
On Monday morning, February 20, I attended the Deans Council meeting. In addition to Provost Sheldon Ekland-Olson, President Bill Powers participated. We discussed the University's new student information database (Project IQ), endowment polices, the naming of buildings and programs, and strategic planning.
That afternoon, I made a presentation to Director of Professional Development and Community Engagement Tommy Darwin's interdisciplinary ethics class. The students were especially interested in Envision Central Texas and our ongoing Gulf Coast mapping project.
Later, I introduced Professor George Wheeler of Columbia University, the School's first Jahn Lecturer in Historic Preservation. The Jahn Lecture Series is a result of the initiative of Advisory Council member Charles Phillips [B.Arch. '74, M.Arch. '75], who secured a generous donation from Cathedral Stone. Professor Wheeler described the influence of soiling on the aesthetics of stone buildings. Afterwards, we held a reception at the Co-Op Materials Laboratory in recognition of the Ragsdale Family Foundation endowment of an excellence fund in historic preservation. The donation was made possible by Mac Ragsdale [B.Arch. '77].
On Wednesday, February 22, I flew to the Rockefeller Brothers' Pocantico Center for a meeting on mega-regional development. Organized and sponsored by the Lincoln Institute and the Regional Plan Association, featured speakers included former Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt and University of Michigan urban historian Robert Fishman. Several case studies of mega-regional development from across the country were presented.
At the meeting, I moderated a session on our Gulf Coast mapping project. Barbara Faga, chair of the board of EDAW, presented progress of mapping environmental hazards along the coast. Our respondents included Carl Anthony of the Ford Foundation; Paul Farmer, the executive director of the American Planning Association; and David Crossley, president of Houston's Gulf Coast Institute.
On Tuesday night, February 28, we held our Gerald Hines Urban Land Institute Urban Design Competition 2006 Awards Ceremony Program at the Littlefield Home. Earlier in the day, we learned that the team of Mary Vavra, Eli Pearson, Annie Tucker, Norma Devereux, and Jay Elder had received an honorable mention in the national competition. Dean Almy, Betsy Cogburn, Mike Cogburn, and I presented our awards. The Cogburns sponsored the reception as well as the awards for the teams. The competition fosters considerable cross-disciplinary learning among architecture, planning, landscape architecture, and business students. We value the support of the Cogburn family and the local ULI chapter in making this a success.
Yesterday morning, President Bill Powers visited the School. He visited with students, faculty, and staff. I gave him a tour of our facilities and stressed our space needs. A feature of the tour was Battle Hall, which faces several restoration and accessibility challenges with its centennial approaching in 2010.
—Fritz Steiner
