In this video, Professor Julian Beinart discusses the need to recognize the complexities of cities and urbanism through a personal anecdote during a lecture from the MIT course 4.241J/11.330J Theory of City Form.

Teaching 4.241J/11.330J: Embracing Complexities of Urbanism

This lecture presents the entirety of the course content to create connections among the previous 25 lectures. Preceding is a discourse on theory being supported by facts, the importance of details, and the existent relationship between space and society.

Lec 26: Conclusion: Towards a Theory of City Form

This lecture focuses on urbanism in the Global South. Discussion targets how to deal with population growth, the residue of colonialism, the tradition of tribalism, and urban poverty on a mass scale. Chandigarh and Diadema are taken as case studies.

Lec 25: Cases IV: Hyper and Mega-urbanism

This lecture continues the discussion on urbanism and threats to urbanism. Change in climate, social equity, the move away from the central city, the effect of urban development on the environment, and risks to the planet are key points of discussion.

Lec 24: Cases III: Post-urbanism and Resource Conservation

This lecture presents interpretations of how to deal with the past, which refers to both history and memory. The views of Aldo Rossi and Léon Krier are offered for debate, as well as the use of architecture in museums, memorials, and as a pneumonic.

Lec 21: Form Models III and IV: Rationality and Memory

This lecture explores the implications of public and private space, including its history, the sharing of use, public space as a democracy, and ownership of built environments.

Lec 22: Cases I: Public and Private Domains

This lecture focuses on the history of the American city, suburbia, public transportation, the role of technology and government, the American downtown, and the impact of mobility and density.

Lec 23: Cases II: Suburbs and Periphery

This lecture picks up with Team 10, temporality and flexibility in cities, and the impact of geometry. The anticlassical idea of public organization by an underlying DNA, and large-scale temporary environments are presented alongside case studies.

Lec 20: Form Models II: Open-endedness and Prophecy

This lecture begins with a discussion of borders between legal and illegal as well as upper and lower classes, with an example of the Mexican-American border. Colonization and case studies are discussed, along with spatial techniques and power displays.

Lec 18: Spatial & Social Structure III: Colony & Post-colony

This lecture identifies the premises for modern and post-modern urbanism. Science, the breaking of life into categories, the modern spirit, universal identity, the corporate client, and the self-image of the architect are presented as major influences.

Lec 19: Form Models I: Modern and Post-modern Urbanism

The professor doesn’t really stick to any structure or agenda and often rambles off on tangents.  However, if you listen closely there are some hidden nuggets of wisdom that make this class worth watching in its entirety.  However, definitely not one of the best of MIT Opencourseware classes I’ve watched

Incoherent Rambling

No reviews yet!!! Surprising!!! A Great lecture series about the theories of urban form.

Theory and design of cities

Theory of City Form

The lecture starts with the relationship between social structure and spatial structure. Jerusalem is taken as a case study that frames ideas about religion as a democratic phenomenon, the emergence of the synagogue, and the notion of a shared capital.

Lec 16: Spatial & Social Structure I: Theory

This lecture starts with defining the goals of utopia, and its address of the boundary problems in society. Example communities are discussed to analyze why such communities fail. The works of three architects are discussed with the lens of social reform.

Lec 13: Utopianism as Social Reform and Built Form

This lecture begins with a study of Vienna and its wall system, the middle-class. economy, Ringstrasse, and Red Vienna. The latter part of the lecture focuses on Barcelona, and its extension constructed around the city's center.

Lec 10: Transformations III: Vienna and Barcelona

This lecture explores the enlightment of people as individuals, separation of work and home, and the organization of complex space. Panopticism, implied meanings in façade, spatial comparison, and transformability are illustrated through case studies.

Lec 12: Transformations V: Panopticism, St. Petersburg and Berlin

This lecture focuses on the development of Paris, and Haussmann's rebuilding of the city, with an emphasis on the emergent business and management model. Notions of play, distribution, the role of streets and walls, and psychogeography are discussed.

Lec 9: Transformations II: Paris

This lecture discusses changes associated with the Industrial Revolution, with a focus on London. Topics include the migration from rural to urban, the Inclosure Acts, the idea that land is available to the population, and rationalized labor.

Lec 7: The Early Cities of Capitalism

The lecture starts with Kevin Lynch's The Image of a City, defining image as identity, structure, and meaning. Other topics include the reduction of complexity, the city as a set of agreements, correlation and movement pattern, and the space syntax.

Lec 6: Dimensions, Patterns, Agreements, Structure, and Syntax

This lecture covers the organic model and on appropriateness of size and boundaries as dictated by nature, homeostasis, optimal size, population, value of land, and nonorthogonal forms. A case study on the Tennessee Valley Authority is also presented.

Lec 4: Normative Theory III: The City as Organism

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