Professor Alan Balfour

   Dean of the College of Architecture Georgia Tech

The Shape of the City in an Age of Branded Reality

The paper will reflect on the common characteristics of major city building cultures– from the imperial cities of Chinese, the rationality of the Greek polis, the  instrumentality of the Romans on through the god centered cities of medieval Europe and the Enlightenment to the cities of empires industry and ideology.   Cites within specific cultures have always been formed from common elements, however increasingly in recent decades the major cities across the world - irrespective of religion culture or politics - are being shaped both by common commercial enterprise and cultivated symbols of status  - that is resulting in the of what appears to a single world city form.  Yet that singular form may in no way reflect any similarity in the political or cultural nature of these places –  at this time.   The idea of the modern city will be illustrated with excerpts from the J ac ques  T ati‟s  f ilm  Playtime. There will then be an examination of the major elements that form the world city –  the commercial buildings, the malls, the apartments, the suburban housing - and all components of critical infrastructure that in their evolution have became by necessity standardized.    This will a predominantly a visual presentation that will pose the question - to what extent will the increasingly similar realty of the world city promote a unified world culture. And what is the nature of that culture?  We all buy the same brands of food and clothes, use the same buses and trains and credit cards and walk though streets that are similarly pleasantly anonymous – and to what end beyond consumption is this world city taking us?