How are global cities formed? This seminar examines the conflicting architectures of global cities formed through processes linked to war (territorialization), trade (capitalism) and desire (the human psyche). We will examine current trends and forecasts for cities within a global context mired in historical conflicts as well as new uncertainties and risks. The course situates architecture within expanded disciplinary and geographic fields, broadening urban analyses to consider ecological, ethnographic and economic dynamics during a period of dramatic global change – environmentally, socially and psychologically. (Felix Guattari)

We first will examine cities as walled enclaves and centers of power in a hostile world defined through risk. We will then look at the world trading system both before and after hegemony (Abu-Lughod), through the development of capitalism from Braudel’s Mediterranean to Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and the African slave trade and diaspora.

Finally we will look at religion, utopia and the "American Dream" in the global imagination. We will study the effect the internet and telecommunications have had on the flattening of the world (Friedman) and how America has become a state of mind as well as a nation state. Students are required to make one 20 minute presentation and a 20 page paper on one city through one of the three lenses.