The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded UCLA $2 million to support "The Urban Turn: Collective Life in Megacities of the Pacific Rim."The project will build connections between architecture, urban studies and the humanities, engaging faculty and students from across the campus in the study of contemporary issues in four of the world's most complex cities — Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai and Mexico City.
This gift will establish UCLA as an international research hub where collaborations between design and the humanities lead to a new understanding of megacities. "The Urban Turn" suggests the ever-greater extent to which our cities are shaped by and experienced as dynamic, culturally diverse and networked space. By studying these issues in four different cities, UCLA will create the scholarly research and pedagogical context for a new cross-disciplinary field called urban humanities.
"There's no better place to undertake this project than Los Angeles," said UCLA's Dana Cuff, professor of architecture and urban design and director of cityLAB at the School of the Arts and Architecture, who will lead the effort. "Our own megacity exists in the public imagination through film, literature, TV and innovative design practices."
Over the next three-and-a-half years, interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students will collaborate at summer institutes, studios, workshops, seminars and symposia. The project's leaders at UCLA include Diane Favro, professor of architecture and urban design; Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning and associate dean of UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs; and Todd Presner, a professor of Germanic languages and comparative literature and chair of the UCLA Digital Humanities Program.
