2G1/3G4 - ARCH 552 - FALL 2025
INSTITUTIONS
GRADUATE STUDIO
2G1/3G4 - ARCH 552 - FALL 2025COORDINATOR
Ana Morcillo PallarésPROFESSORS
Dawn Gilpin, Sharon Haar,Francesca Mavaracchio, Meredith Miller, Ana Morcillo Pallares, Gina Reichert, Neal Robinson, Christian UnverzagtPUBLIC MARKETS IN THE REGION OF THE GREAT LAKES
From lively food markets in emerging African cities, vibrant South Asian street markets, Midwest’s farmers markets to European’s historic distinctive cast iron designs, all share a common fact: markets are not just places of commerce, but dynamic urban hubs of activity, communication, economy, politics and cultural exchange. They serve as centers for traditional trade and relationships, connecting producers with consumers while boosting an important layer of local economics and negotiations. However, the inter-dependency or relationship between the traditional market space and the city is constantly being challenged, adapted and simultaneously undermined by the city's rapid growth and modernisation.
From this critical link between the architecture and the urban scale and amidst global economies’ downturns on local activities, the Institution studio will focus on the rebirth of the marketplace as one of the last destinations of urban vitality and interchange of goods and ideas. From this startpoint, during this semester we will raise the following set of questions, prioritizing the relationship between civic structures and the city, as well as capacity-building in the core.
What can we still learn from the resilience of the marketplace as an institution? How does its representational role mediate new spatial forms in sustaining the life of the city in a digital era of avidly online consumption? How can the marketplace be reimagined once again? And, what new possibilities might shape for itself in the immediate future?