Exploring Suburbia:
Regional Trends, Cultural Forces and Changing Economies
Saturday, January 17, 2009
8:30 AM - Noon
Carnegie Museum of Art Theater
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
An exhibition viewing of "Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes" at Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center (final weekend).
In today’s expanding metropolitan areas, the lines between urban and suburban are rapidly blurring. Population growth, changing demographics, and transportation patterns are among the many factors that city planners, designers, developers, and elected officials confront as they prepare for sustainable growth in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Because suburbia occupies a dominant presence in so many lives—a place of not only residence but also of work, commerce, worship, education, and leisure—it has become a focal point for competing interests and viewpoints. The suburbs have always been a fertile space for imagining both the best and the worst of modern social life. On the one hand, the suburbs are portrayed as a middle-class domestic utopia and on the other as a dystopic world of homogeneity and conformity. Both of these stereotypes believe a more realistic understanding of contemporary suburbia and its dynamic transformations, and how these representations and realities shape our society, influence our culture, and impact our lives.
Come attend this exhibit tour and panel discussion about the challenges and successes of the suburban design, how suburbs are evolving, and the cultural and regional implications of these shifts.
The "Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes" exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art is the first major museum exhibition to explore suburbia through the lens of art and architecture. It looks at the many ways artists and architects respond to America’s suburban condition. The works on view explore the landscape as a fertile place for imagining the best and the worst of modern social life. See if your own impressions of suburbia shift as you learn how the American suburb has played a catalytic role in the creation of new art. What lessons do we share here and our region and where does the future point for the evolved suburb in southwestern Pennsylvania?
Through architectural models and drawings, installations, animations, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos, more than 30 artists and architects reflect on and propose ideas for suburbs, provocatively exposing the fascinating layers of these deceptively familiar places.
Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes is organized by Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Schedule of Events:
8:30 AM Continental breakfast and networking
9:00 - 10:30 AM Panel discussion featuring local elected officials/NEOC grads
Paula Calabrese, Oakmont Borough
Dan DeMarco, Ross Township
Dick Hadley, Cranberry Township
Vanessa McCarthy-Johnson, Wilkinsburg Borough
Art Tintori, Green Tree Borough
10:30 AM - Noon Exhibition tour by Tracy Myers, Curator of Architecture, The Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, and co-organizer of the exhibition.
There is no fee to attend.
There is fee parking in adjacent lot/garage.
Who should attend: NEOC Alumni Association members, SWPA Planners, Developers, and Elected Officials
Presented by:
The Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art
Sustainable Pittsburgh - Sustainable Community Development Network
Local Government Academy - Newly Elected Officials Course Alumni Association
Cost: Free