During World War II, the United States dropped hundreds of bombs on Tokyo, leaving much of the Japanese capital devastated. The city’s revival will be the subject of Japanese planner Hiroo Ichikawa’s lecture, “Reconstruction of Tokyo: Designed, Chaotic, then Reborn,” in Lawrence Hall Tuesday night.
Ichikawa’s talk is one of many in the Savage Lecture Series, a combination of lectures and seminars focusing on the rebuilding of devastated cities, as well as the role of architects and planners in shaping the urban future. The series, “Cities in War, Struggle and Peace: The Architecture of Memory and Life – Rebuilding Cities After War and Disaster,” is sponsored by the Department of Architecture and the Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace.
A visiting professorship, SEIRP began in 1987 when Carlton Savage, a 1921 University graduate, gifted his alma mater with $500,000 for programs designed to inspire students to “make their own contribution to the development of reasonableness as a substitute for violence and hate in personal, national and international affairs,” as stated in the Declaration of Gift.
Savage had a long and distinguished career with the Department of State, and was eventually part of the Delegation to the San Francisco Conference that established the United Nations in 1945. Upon his retirement, Savage taught international relations at the University of Utah and American University in Washington.
Every Tuesday night through mid-February, the free Savage Lecture Series will take place at 7:30 p.m. in 177 Lawrence Hall. The lectures will address the following topics:
Jan. 15: Tokyo
Jan. 22: The Balkans
Jan. 29: Iraqi Marshes
Feb. 5: Bhuj, India
Feb. 12: Dresden, Germany
Feb. 19: (re)Building: a panel discussion