The Past and Future City, a presentation by Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani ’98 and Nupur Chandhury ’05, with introduction by Professor Gary McDonogh (Thursday, June 10th at 6:30 PM)

Attend an exciting evening full of rich discourse on the future of cities as the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City marks the 50th Anniversary of the inception of Bryn Mawr’s Growth and Structure of Cities Department founded by Professor Barbara Miller Lane.

Join transformative urbanists Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani ’98 and Nupur Chaudhury ’05 with a warm introduction by Professor Gary McDonogh for a riveting evening. They will discuss examples from their individual trajectories in housing and building healthy and equitable communities and what it means to create just cities for all.

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani ’98 is an urbanist, curator, author, artist, and the founder of Buscada, an organization which creates vital spaces for dialogue to foster more just cities by fusing art, design, and research. Gabrielle is author of Contested City: Art and Public History as Mediation at New York’s Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (University of Iowa Press, 2019)—special honoree and finalist for the Municipal Art Society’s Brendan Gill Prize. Gabrielle teaches Growth and Structure of Cities at Bryn Mawr College & urban studies at the New School, and regularly consults with arts and culture organizations on community and art engagements and strategic visioning. Her creative practice has been shown at institutions including MIT, Tate Britain, Brooklyn Public Library, the Center for Architecture, Artists Alliance, and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, and featured on WNYC, WBAI, CNN’s Next List, Next City, and Gothamist. Her writing on cities and photography has been published in Visual StudiesUrban OmnibusSpace and CultureSociety & Space, and Buildings & Landscapes, as well as other international publications. She holds a PhD in Environmental Psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY and a BA in Growth and Structure of Cities from Bryn Mawr College.

Nupur Chaudhury ’05 is a Public Health Urbanist, organizer, storyteller, and artist who looks at cities, communities and connections through a grassroots lens. For over two decades, she has developed and implemented strategies to support residents, communities, and neighborhoods to challenge power structures and build just, strong, and equitable cities.

Nupur was actively involved in shaping two organizations that have redefined what it means to center communities and health in their work. In 2013, she worked to conceptualize and build Made in Brownsville (now Youth Design Center) and was the Founding Board Chair of the organization for eight years. In 2017, she was the founding Director of Neighborhood Health at the Center for Health Equity, housed at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. There, she developed the concept of the Neighborhood Health Action Centers, secured mayoral funding, and oversaw the integration of new staff with the existing Health Department structure in key neighborhoods throughout New York City. After working in Philanthropy and funding both long term place-based investing and rapid grantmaking in the epicenter of the COVID epidemic, Nupur launched her own firm, NupurSpectives. As the Founder and Principal, she advises key organizations on how to infuse equitable practices in their work. She lectures, teaches and facilitates action focused on health equity and building healthy communities. She is also the host of A League of Extraordinary Urbanists video series, documenting the stories of city builders and network weavers across the world.

Her work has been featured in the American Journal of Public Health, CityLab, National Public Radio, and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. She is a Urban Design Forum’s Forefront Fellow, a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, and a board member of the Center for the Living City. She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College (BA in Growth and Structure of Cities), Columbia University (Masters in Public Health), and New York University (Masters in Urban Planning).

Professor Gary McDonogh is an urban anthropologist (Ph.D The Johns Hopkins University) who has chaired Cities off and on since 1992. Trained as an Iberianist, he has published monographs on Barcelona and Iberian worlds, the American South and Hong Kong; his current research focuses on Global Chinatowns. He teaches classes on urban culture and society, mass media, urban enclaves and public and private space.

Some Background on The Growth and Structure of Cities Program and Professor Barbara Miller Lane.  Professor Lane joined Bryn Mawr College as a history professor in 1962 and helped found the Growth and Structure of Cities Program.  She served as its director from 1971-1989 (and 1996-97), and introduced courses in the history of urban form and history of modern architecture. Her works include Architecture and Politics in Germany, 1918-1945 (Harvard University Press, 1968, revised edition 1985, Italian edition 1973, German edition 1986); a compilation on Nazi Ideology Before 1933 (ed., with Leila Rupp, University of Texas Press, 1978), National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries(Cambridge University Press, 2000), the anthology Housing and Dwelling: Perspectives on Modern Domestic Architecture(Routledge, 2006), and Houses for a New World: Builders and Buyers in American Suburbs 1945-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2015). She was listed as a noteworthy humanities educator by Marquis Who’s Who.

For More Information, visit:

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani’s Website:
www.buscada.com

For more on Contested City, and to get the book, use code BEN40 at:
https://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/9781609386108/contested-city

Nupur Chaudhury’s Website:
https://www.nupurchaudhury.com

Nupur Chaudhury’s Blog/video series:
https://www.nupurspectives.org

WHAT: The Past and Future City, a presentation by Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani ’98 and Nupur Chaudhury ’05, with introduction by Professor Gary McDonogh.

WHEN: Thursday, June 10th at 6:30 PM

WHERE: Please RSVP HERE. A Zoom Link will be provided upon registration AND on the day of the event.

HOW MUCH: $20.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: Helen Thurston ’74 at hthurston77@earthlink.net

Get Contested City: Art and Public History as Mediation at New York’s Seward Park Urban Renewal Area by Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani at:

University of Iowa Press (use code BEN40 for discount):
https://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/books/9781609386108/contested-city

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Contested-City-History-Mediation-Humanities/dp/1609386108/

More on Contested City:
https://buscada.com/projects/contested-city/

Support the League of Extraordinary Urbanists Series at
https://www.patreon.com/NupurSpectives

Watch the League of Extraordinary Urbanists Series at:
https://www.nupurspectives.org