Reinhold Martin to Present 'Dialectical Regionalism: For a Green New Deal' Lecture on Nov. 15

Image courtesy of Reinhold Martin

Tennessee Valley Authority, Wheeler Dam Generators, Town Creek, Alabama, 1933-1936. Photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1942; Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Reinhold Martin will present a lecture at 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design lecture series.

Martin is a professor of architecture in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City.

In his lecture, "Dialectical Regionalism: For a Green New Deal," Martin will discuss House Resolution 109, "Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal," which was formally introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 7, 2019.

This talk will consider that resolution's explicit precedent, the New Deal (1933-1941), as a usable past for current efforts to address the climate crisis in a just and equitable manner.

In particular, the vast, infrastructural hydropower projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority offer a significant example of large-scale government investment in renewable energy and job creation. The Tennessee Valley Authority was an ambitious exercise in regional planning, and its architecture was an exemplary form of civic modernism.

Understanding the Tennessee Valley Authority's regionalism in a dialectical fashion — where what seems self-evident often is not, as hidden conflicts resurface — Martin will explore the relationship between architecture, infrastructure, environmental planning, and social and economic justice. These were central concerns for the New Deal then, and they are potentially even greater concerns for the Green New Deal today.

At Columbia University, Martin also directs the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. Currently, the Buell Center is developing a multi-year, multi-faceted project, "Power: Infrastructure in America," featured on a website of the same name, which includes teaching resources and research related to the Green New Deal. Martin also chairs the Society of Fellows in the Humanities and is a member of the Center for Comparative Media.

A founding co-editor of the journal Grey Room, Martin's books include The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space (MIT, 2003), Utopia's Ghost: Architecture and Postmodernism, Again (Minnesota, 2010), and The Urban Apparatus: Mediapolitics and the City (Minnesota, 2016). He is currently completing a book on the history of the American university as a media complex.

This is the Places Journal Lecture in Public Scholarship in Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The public is invited to attend. Admission is free, with limited seating.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or fayjones.uark.edu.