Planetary Urbanization
Already more than five decades ago, Henri Lefebvre put forward the radical hypothesis of the complete urbanisation of society, demanding a radical shift in analysis from urban form to the urbanisation process. Today, the urban represents an increasingly worldwide condition in which political-economic relations are enmeshed. This situation of planetary urbanisation means, paradoxically, that even spaces that lie well beyond the traditional city cores and suburban peripheries—from transoceanic shipping lanes, transcontinental highway and railway networks and worldwide communications infrastructures to alpine and coastal tourist enclaves, “nature” parks, offshore financial centres, agro-industrial catchment sones and erstwhile “natural” spaces such as the world’s oceans, deserts, jungles, mountain ranges, tundra and atmosphere—have become integral parts of the worldwide urban fabric. While the process of agglomeration remains essential to the production of this new worldwide urban topography, settlement spaces can no longer be treated as if they were composed of discrete, distinct and universal “types” of cities. In short, in an epoch in which the idea of the “non-urban” appears increasingly to be an ideological projection derived from a long dissolved, preindustrial geo-historical formation, our image of the “urban” likewise needs to be fundamentally reinvented.
A Theory Project
In the early 2010s, Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory at the Harvard Graduate School of Design GSD (since 2020 Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Chicago) and Christian Schmid, Professor of Sociology at ETH Zurich, launched a joint project to further develop Lefebvre’s concept of planetary urbanisation and to develop a new analytical framework for the analysis of contemporary urbanisation processes. Both Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid had already published widely on Lefebvre’s theory.
Publications:
Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid: Planetary Urbanisation (2011)
Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid: The Urban Age in Question (2014)
Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid: Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban (2015)
Christian Schmid: Journeys Through Planetary Urbanization (2018)
These publications by Brenner and Schmid sparked heated controversy in the field of urban studies, but also proved very fruitful for urban analysis and inspired new research approaches. The Chair of Sociology itself engaged in several major research projects based on the concept of planetary urbanisation.
Cartographies of Planetary Urbanisation
The Chairs of Neil Brenner, Milica Topalović, and Christian Schmid joined forces and presented their interdisciplinary research projects representing contemporary forms of planetary urbanisation at the Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture 2015.
Neil Brenner, Urban Theory Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design: “Extreme Territories of Urbanisation”.
Milica Topalović, Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning at ETH Zurich and Future Cities Laboratory Singapore: “Hinterland: Singapore, Johor, Riau”.
Christian Schmid, Chair of Sociology at ETH Zurich and Future Cities Laboratory Singapore: “Planetary Urbanisation in Comparative Perspective”.
Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture 2015: Re-Living the City
Brenner, Schmid, Topalović (2017): Cartographies of Planetary Urbanization. In: Kerb Journal of Landscape Architecture 24
Worlds of Planetary Urbanisation
Neil Brenner, Christian Schmid and Milica Topalović collaborated once more for the Biennale di Venecia, the 17th International Architecture Exhibition 2021: How will we live together?
Urban Theory Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design: “Data-spheres of Planetary Urbanization”
Chair of Sociology at ETH Zurich and Chair Architecture of Territory ETH Zurich with Future Cities Laboratory Singapore: “Territories of Extended Urbanization “
Planetary Urbanisation: Agendas for Research and Action
Urbanisation Processes are profoundly transforming the Earth. Enmeshed in the metabolic flows and the web of life, they produce manifold planetary crises and demand urgent action.
To celebrate the launch of the books “Extended Urbanisation” and “Vocabularies for an Urbanising Planet”, the Chair of Sociology and the Chair Architecture of Territory created an Exhibition at the ZAZ Bellerive – Zentrum Architektur Zürich and organised an international conference together with NSL Network City and Landscape, ETH Zurich.
ZAZ Bellerive: Planetary Urbanisation / Agrifutures Zürich
NSL Kolloquium 2023/2. Planetary Urbanisation: Agendas for Research and Action
