Globalization, Chinese Mountainscapes, "Green Urbanism," "Ma"

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The 2007 lecture series sponsored by the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning continues in April with one of the world's most important scholars in the field of architectural education, Joan Ockman, participating as the school's 2007 Will and Nan Clarkson Architecture Chair.

Ockman, who will be in residence at UB April 2-7, will give the 2007 Clarkson Architecture Lecture at 5:30 p.m. April 5 in 147 Diefendorf Hall on UB's South (Main Street) Campus. It will be free and open to the public.

Saskia Sassen, Ph.D., who will deliver the second talk in April, is a distinguished sociologist and economist who, in 1991, first identified and described the phenomenon of the "global city," and continues to argue the need to understand the full complexities and dangers of globalization.

She will deliver the school's 2007 Ibrahim Jammal Lecture at 5:30 p.m. April 9 in 301 Crosby Hall on the UB South Campus. The free public talk will be followed by a reception for the speaker.

Sassen is known most recently for her investigation of the influence of communication technology on governance at the point at which nation states began to lose power to control these developments. A multi-national herself, she is now at work on projects involving the world's increasing human migration and the "denationalization" and "transnationalism" it provokes.

Her work reflects the interests of Jammal, an emeritus associate professor in the school, who with his wife, Viviane, established the endowed lecture, as well as the Jammal Fellowship and Jammal Best Thesis Award. Founder of the UB Department of Planning, he served on its faculty for more than 30 years. His teaching and research focus on long-range planning, forecasting methods, international-development planning and complex problem solving.

Sassen's most recent book, "Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages" (Princeton University Press, 2006), describes how the national state made today's global era possible.

She emerged as a prolific author in the field of urban sociology more than 20 years ago, examining the impact that globalization processes and their resulting movements of labor and capital have on urban life.

Her 1991 multi-disciplinary tour de force, "The Global City," remains a classic for regional economists, urban geographers, sociologists, architects and planners, and the fact that her work has been translated into 12 languages, reflects the enormous influence of her scholarship.

Sassen is Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.

On April 11, Walter Nan, professor at the Beijing Institute for Civil Engineering and Architecture, will speak on the topic of "China's Sacred Sites."

The free public lecture, presented in collaboration with UB's Asian Studies Program, will be held at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall. It will be followed by a book signing and public reception honoring the speaker.

A photo exhibition, "China's Sacred Sites: Architecture of Heaven and Earth," organized by the School of Architecture and Planning and the Asian Studies Program, will be featured from March 31 to April 15 in conjunction with Nan's lecture

Nan has a special interest in Chinese mountainscape architecture, which merges architecture and the environment to embody the philosophical idea of heaven, earth and man as one. It has provoked the building of spectacular sites, among them temples, monasteries, pagodas and pavilions, bridges, covered walkways, caves, cliffside and lakeshore dwellings.

Among Nan's many articles and books is "Earth Architecture in Northwest China." He has traveled extensively throughout China, visiting many remote and relatively unknown sites that have been of significance throughout the country's long history.

On April 18, the school will host the annual lecture it presents in collaboration with graduate students in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

The speaker will be Tim Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Virginia. The free public lecture at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall will be followed by a reception.

Much of Beatley's research and writing focuses on creative strategies by which cities and towns can reduce fundamentally their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. He has published extensively in these areas and on environmental planning and policy, with special emphasis on coastal and natural hazards planning, environmental values and ethics, and biodiversity conservation.

His recent books include "Ethical Land Use" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); "Habitat Conservation Planning: Endangered Species and Urban Growth" (University of Texas Press, 1994); "Natural Hazard Mitigation" (Island Press, 1999, with David Godschalk and others); and "An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management" (Island Press, 2002, Second Edition, with David Brower and Anna Schwab).

Another, "The Ecology of Place" (Island Press, 1997) with Kristy Manning, reviews innovative local sustainability practice from around the country and provides practical guidance on creating more sustainable urban form, restorative local economies and stronger communities.

A year spent in Europe examining the experiences of some 30 cities in 12 European countries resulted in "Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities" (Island Press, 2000). His most recent book is "Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age" (Island Press, 2005).

The school's May 2 speaker will be Michael Lazarin, professor of English at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. He will discuss notion of "ma" as a constitutive category of Japanese architecture in a free public lecture at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall.

His lecture will be presented in collaboration with UB's Department of Comparative Literature.

The kanji character "ma" represents an ingrained principle in Japan's collective cultural history that time is an integral part of the experience of space. In fact, the character "means" both an interval of time and an interval of space.

In such Japanese arts as Kabuki, Noh, dance, storytelling, music, calligraphy, painting and, Lazarin argues, architecture, "ma" can refer to rhythm and beat, a dramatic pause in spoken lines, or the use of empty space to enhance the sense of time and place.