Designing Disorder

Pablo Sendra is Lecturer in Planning and Urban Design at The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. He is also co-founder and partner of the urban design practice Lugadero and co-founder of the network CivicWise. He develops action research projects and radical teaching in collaboration with community groups and activists in London. He is co-author (with Daniel Fitzpatrick) of Community-Led Regeneration (2020) and co-editor (with Maria João Pita and Civicwise) of Civic Practices (2017).Richard Sennett's first book was The Uses of Disorder, published in 1970. His previous books include The Fall of Public Man, Flesh and Stone and Respect, as well as the recent Homo Faber trilogy, The Craftsman, Together, Building and Dwellings. For decades he has advised urban programmes for the United Nations. He has been awarded the Hegel and Spinoza prizes, as well as an honorary doctorate by Cambridge University.

In this very readable essay, Sennett pushes on the ideas he developed in his 'Uses of Disorder'. The upshot seems to be the 'open city'; the antithesis of places like New York'sHudson Yards; a pre-determined, real-estate driven 'community' that can only degrade over time. Given contingent times, a necessary critical view of the modern urban realm.