-----Original Message-----
From: Ann Keating <[log in to unmask]> 

'Portraits of the City': Dublin urban landscape project and volume

A project that I think will be of great interest to urban historians has
been afoot in Dublin since 2006, the result of an ongoing collaboration
between University College Dublin and the Office of Public Works (with the
participation of the Dublin City Council). 

While focused particularly on the transformative power of historically and
architecturally significant elements in the Dublin city center, the project
also offers itself as a case study that can be "applicable to other urban
landscapes." The project has worked within UNESCO's World Heritage Cities
Program that was established to assist designated cities with the protection
of their historic urban landscape. 

In 2010, the project sponsored an international conference in Dublin
entitled "Portrait of the City." Over several days, scholars from
disciplines ranging from art history to architecture to cultural geography
to history made presentations on cities around the world. This month, a
collection of essays drawn from that 2010 conference has been published by
the Four Courts Press, _Portraits of the City: Dublin and the Wider World_.
Edited by Gillian O'Brien, Liverpool John Moores University, and Finola
O'Kane, University College Dublin, the volume is heavily illustrated and
includes eighteen essays that range over time and geography, but center on
the ways in urban landscapes are interpreted.

Among the essays of particular interest to urban historians are: nineteenth
century views of the emerging bourgeois city by Jeffrey A. Cohen, Bryn Mawr
College; an exploration of Chicago as Catholic space by Ellen Skerrett, a
researcher for the Jane Addams Papers; a consideration of the maps of
Baghdad by M. Christine Boyer, Princeton University; and a discussion of the
political iconography of Birmingham's Civil Rights District by Dell Upton,
UCLA. Gillian O'Brien provides a reflection on commemorating the past in
Dublin's future that ends with the observation that "the kaleidoscope that
is the constantly evolving city deserves to be a city of all of its
people--past, present and future."

Gillian O'Brien and Finola O'Kane, eds. _Portraits of the city: Dublin and
the wider world_ (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012)
http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/product.php?intProductID=1077

Table of Contents:
-------------------------
Foreword, Loughlin Kealy

1 "Portrait of the city: framing the significance of urban landscapes,"
Gillian O'Brien & Finola O'Kane

2 "A streetscape named desire: long views through the emerging bourgeois
city," Jeffrey A. Cohen

3 "Prospects of patrimony: M.s. trench and f.W. trench's projects for Dublin
and london 1780-1830," Stephen Daniels & Finola O'Kane

4 "Post-1755 lisbon: two-and-a-half portraits," Joana Cunha Leal

5 "'Give' and 'take': luke Gardiner and the making of the north city," Merlo
Kelly

6 "Shaping the city, shaping the subject: honour, affect and agency in John
Gwynn's London and Westminster improved (1766)," F. M. Dodsworth

7 "Building dialectics: negotiating urban scenography in late Georgian
Dublin," Conor Lucey

8 "Re-figuring urban space: race and ethnicity in printed views of New
England, 1800-50," Martha J. McNamara

9 "'Splendour and havoc': the many maps of Baghdad," M. Christine Boyer

10 "Jerusalem: the ultimate pilgrimage city," Naomi Miller

11 "Parish by parish: constructing Chicago as Catholic space," Ellen
Skerrett

12 "The significance of the urban waterfronts," Agustina Martire

13 "The ethics of giving and receiving: a study of the Iveagh Markets,
Dublin," Samantha L. Martin-McAuliffe

14 "The political iconography of sacred ground: history and redevelopment in
Birmingham's Civil Rights District," Dell Upton

15 "Seeing the city from the suburb: Brookline's influence on the Boston
metropolitan landscape," Keith N. Morgan

16 "Forest Hills, Queens, Ny, 1920-70: creating and maintaining an urban
space," Jeffrey S. Gurock

17 "'And all her ghosts that walk': commemorating the past in Dublin's
future," Gillian O'Brien

18 "The significance of cities: current developments and concepts 240,"
Jukka Jokilehto


Foreword, by Loughlin Kealy  [Ed: the foreword is reproduced in shortened
form below - LF]
---------------------------------------
In December 2010 an international conference was held in Dublin castle, 'to
advance a portrait of the city which tries to frame not only the physical
place of the city, but also the cultural, historic, artistic and
intellectual "landscape" that the city redraws over and over again'.
Entitled 'Portrait of the city', the conference heard contributions from
scholars that presented a range of perspectives on the inherited and
contemporary city. Contributions were drawn from the heart and the
boundaries of disciplines such as history, literature, geography and
heritage conservation - an indication of the complexity of the human habitat
and of the intellectual challenge posed in its comprehension. This book
arises from that conference and includes papers given there, together with
some additional contributions. Portraits aspire to be both depictions of
reality and challenges to our perceptions of it.

The immediate stimulus for the project was the realization that historically
and architecturally significant elements of the city in the possession of
the state had transformative potential within the city centre, and that it
was important that the value of the urban endowment should be understood,
the better to manage the process of change. It was considered that the
project would have broader application: for example case studies on Dublin
could develop principles applicable to other urban landscapes. The task was
to develop a framework through which the cultural significance of the
physical environment of the city could be appraised, using the city of
Dublin as the locus of study. 

The structure devised for this exploration was built around a postgraduate
programme in urban and building conservation within the school of
architecture at UCD. The programme was established in 1989 in recognition of
the growing need for expertise in this area, and of its essential
interdisciplinary nature. It aims to provide an advanced course of study
with an emphasis on methods of recording, researching, analysing and
evaluating the heritage of buildings and towns, and on the development of
the ability to make considered judgments on the issues involved in their
conservation and continuing use. The programme culminates in a thesis
submitted for the degree of Master of Urban and Building conservation. In
addition to stimulating urban studies centred on the locations of the
significant state holdings, the project has provided a focus for a range of
topics for masters theses, supported research at doctoral level and has
funded a postdoctoral fellowship. The conference, 'Portrait of the city',
has been sponsored by the project and was designed to bring a range of
international as well as interdisciplinary perspectives to bear on this area
of enquiry. The underlying purpose is to situate conservation practice in
Ireland in a forward-thinking position in relation to the wider global
context. [Kealy, March 2012]


Ann Keating
North Central College
Naperville, IL
http://northcentralcollege.edu/academics/faculty/ann-durkin-keating