David Spurr

«Future Cities in Architecture and Literature»

La Société de Lecture est heureuse de vous convier à une rencontre avec David Spurr.

Professor emeritus of modern English literature at the University of Geneva, and the author of many books and scholarly articles on the relation between literature and the arts. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Michigan before being appointed professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. In 1996, he was appointed professor at University of Neuchâtel, then at Geneva in 2002. He has taught as a visiting professor at the universities of Basel, Zurich, Innsbruck and Iceland.

Writers and architects alike have sought to imagine what cities will look like in the future. Their conceptions vary from the utopian ambitions of early twentieth century architects such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, to the more somber visions of contemporary novelists like William Gibson, J.G. Ballard, or Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as those of films like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. What will our cities be like a century from now? The subject has immediate relevance today, given that any attempt to conceive of a future city poses questions of climate change, increased surveillance, information technology, and social stability.

Crédit photo: © Magali Dougados

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Société de Lecture – Genève