LA+ Journal - TYRANNY

From the first utopian impulse of Plato's Republic to today's global border controls and public space surveillance systems, there has always been a tyrannical aspect to the organization of society and the regulation of its spaces. Tyranny takes many forms, from the rigid barriers of military zones to the subtle ways in which landscape is used to 'naturalize' power. What are these forms and how do they function at different scales, in different cultures, and at different times in history? How are designers and other disciplines complicit in the manifestation of these varying forms of tyranny and how have they been able to subvert such political and ideological structures?

LA+ TYRANNY has an exceptional lineup of global authors from disciplines as varied as landscape architecture, architecture, semiotics, history, geography, political science, urbanism, art, sociology, and human rights. Topics include the architecture of protest, the impact of surveillance technologies on public space, the tyranny of speculative urbanism, the history and role of public squares, the connections between landscape architecture and the military in respect of design methodologies and technologies, and the ways in which we express and memorialize certain traumatic events through art, design, and erasure.

For more on this issue and for a sneak peek inside, see: http://laplusjournal.com/ISSUE-03-TYRANNY