The Five Thousand Pound Life: The Energy Issue
The Energy Issues Panel Discussion
Recorded May 10, 2014
The Five Thousand Pound Life: The Energy Issue was a symposium on energy and architecture organized by The Architectural League and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) in May 2014.
The Energy Issues panel brought together a diverse group of architects and academics along with a filmmaker and a journalist to each present an idea on energy through his or her particular lens. Each short presentation invited response and conversation from the panel, allowing the themes of economics and investment, engagement and practice, design and technology, and communication and ethics, to emerge through the issue of energy.
In this segment, Tracing the global landscapes of oil, Carola Hein highlights how broadly ingrained oil is in Western culture and in the structure of our cities. Using both historical and contemporary references, Hein suggests we need to better understand our “oil-derived urban environments” in order to address them at the local and architectural scales. The panel debates whether it is productive to paint oil companies as villains, or if pointing fingers rather than acknowledging that we’re each complicit in the system hinders change.
Hein is a Professor in the Growth and Structure of Cities Department at Bryn Mawr College. Her current work focuses on global economic networks and their spatial impact on port cities and landscapes of oil.
The Five Thousand Pound Life (5KL) is an initiative of The Architectural League on new ways of thinking, talking, and acting on architecture, climate change, and our economic future.
The Energy Issue is a GSAPP initiative to make energy a cultural issue, launched in partnership with Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope®. Follow the initiative @theenergyissue.
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