About the Course

Genealogies of the City: A Comparative Study of London’s Urban Lineage examines and compare the development of London in relation to three European cities, paradigmatic of the radical transformations of urban environment from the 17^th century onwards: Lisbon, Paris, and Barcelona.

Through notions of biopolitics, political economy and architectural and urban history, we will explore the genealogies of the public in the city and of the private in the house. The content will address the role of planning in the formation of the public realm, and as a response by public and private authorities and entities to the emerging problematics of population. Learn more about the ARC500.1 here.

About the Professor

Alessandro Toti is an historian of architecture trained in Rome and London. He holds a PhD degree from the Bartlett, UCL, in History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism, with a research focus on West Berlin Marxist architecture groups at the turn of the 1970s. He has taught history of architecture, architectural design, and urban design at various universities, including UCL, Westminster, Greenwich, and the Rome Programs of Cornell and Virginia Tech. His publications primarily center around the Italian neo-avant-garde movement and the West German architectural and political contexts.