If current trends continue, the future may hold terrible problems of congestion, pollution and decay in the world's major urban centers, leading to a dilemma with democracy, renowned architect Micheal Sorkin said last night.
Sorkin, who delivered the annual Raoul Wallenberg Lecture, suggested possible solutions to this growing social problem of urban planning.
"The United States acts as if it is not building new cities," Sorkin said. "In reality, they are by expanding existing ones."
He stressed the importance of revitalizing walking as the major form of ground transportation in so-called "edge cities," such as Los Angeles. Congestion and crowding caused by the expansion of cities based on old principles has hurt democratic government and personal interaction, Sorkin said.
Sorkin said he doesn't believe that expanding current cities is a reasonable solution to the problem. In last night's lecture, titled "Traffic in Democracy," which took place in the Art and Architecture Lecture Hall, Sorkin addressed the need for physical interaction of people and their ideas in democratic countries.
University Architecture students said they were impressed by the lecture and Sorkin's command of the issues and information.
"He's a brilliant man," said Matt Berry, an Architecture senior. "His ideas are an excellent alternative to today's 'edge cities.'"
Architecture senior Deta Gamble agreed that Sorkin's perspective on the problems of modern urban planning is insightful.
"He has a really interesting point of view about cities," Gamble said. "Continued population growth will cause a need for some type of new cities to be built."
Sorkin lectured on current and prospective problems while showing slides of architectural concepts developed by his office. Although he said many of his solutions to the problem are based on his own personal taste, he said that he is convinced some changes in the current system must be implemented.
"There is a current trend to try to fix conceptual problems with technology," Sorkin said. "Unfortunately, this doesn't address the conceptual problem itself."
Although the lecture received rave reviews from the audience, some students doubted the scale by which Sorkin's ideas might be implemented in cities.
"I'd say that the scale he's talking about is a bit larger than what we're working with," Berry said, "but the underlying ideas are very functional."
The Raoul Wallenberg Lecture series, an ongoing tradition of lectures involving "Architecture as a Humane Social Art," was founded in 1972 through contributions in Wallenberg's memory.
Wallenberg, who graduated from the University in 1935 with a degree in architecture, became a Swedish diplomat during World War II and saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the terrors of Auschwitz. After his tragic death at a Soviet prison camp, a scholarship fund and the lecture series in his name were established to promote the ideals he lived by.
JEANNIE SERVAAS/Daily
Micheal Sorkin, this year's annual Raoul Wallenberg lecturer, spoke yesterday at the Art and Architecture Building about solutions to urban planning problems.