L.A. Micro-Publics : expanding the seams of the transportation system
Name
805951430-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
33.94 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
48b4adc397edede92bfe5ac1f74c9224
Author(s)
Hong, Yeon Wha
Advisor(s)
Julian Beinart.
Alternative Title
LA Micro-Publics : expanding the seams of the transportation system
Los Angeles Micro-Publics : expanding the seams of the transportation system
Date Issued
2012
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The global city is the privileged site of "repositioning ... citizenship in practice," where traditional notions of identity and citizenship are being radically reconstructed. This thesis examines contemporary Los Angeles as such a site, a heterotopia built on difference, without a coherent civic identity. In this context, the region's transportation system emerges as both a form of governmentality and the "strategic terrain" for the struggle to redefine citizenship in the urban environment. The system itself is a space of contestation, where the struggle to claim the Lefebvrian "right to the city" in the form of mobility is currently being played out. If design can be an instrument of governmentality to propagate exclusion, fear, and resistance to difference in contemporary cities, then it must also have the power to accomplish the opposite. This thesis proposes a strategy of design interventions to the existing L.A. transportation system, as explored in the conditions of the nexus, the crossing, the node, and the terminus, with the aim to open up a new micro-public realm. These new urban spaces of encounter, eroticism, and exposure to othernesses in Los Angeles can push this city to a more urban, more inclusive future.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-103).
Subjects
Architecture.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
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