How does the built environment affect (in)equality? Giuseppina Forte, professor of architecture and environmental studies at Williams College, uses the origins of modern city planning as a starting point to introduce her new book project, The Self-Built City: Material Politics and Ecologies of Difference in São Paulo. Her project chronicles the forces shaping urban ecologies, from self-built homes to hills and rivers, and how colonial structures solidify sites of difference. From her experience as a visiting researcher at the University of São Paulo, Forte speaks with a rich collection of oral histories and subaltern archives. The talk is presented as part of the programming for the Clark's Paper Cities exhibition.

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524.
 
Giuseppina Forte holds a PhD in architecture from UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on urban history and theory, with a specialization in global metropolitan studies. With a transnational perspective gained from living, researching, and practicing architecture on three continents, Forte brings cross-cultural competency to her work. She has collaborated closely with historically underrepresented populations in cities such as São Paulo, Mexico City, Paris, San Francisco, and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Image: Top of the rue Champlain, Ménilmontant. Paris (XXth arrondissement), circa 1877. Courtesy of Charles Manville, Musée Carnavalet, Roger-Viollet, The Image Works.