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Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America

Thomas J. Campanella: November 8, 2001; Running Time: 1:11:48

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Piloting a single-engine biplane high above Washington D.C. in 1920, the intrepid inventor and aviation pioneer Sherman Fairchild first tested his custom-built sky camera, effectively founding the aerial photography company that would bear his name. Roaming America's skies for the next 40 years, the photographers of the Fairchild Aerial Survey Company documented nearly every major city in the US.

The photographs, both map-like shots from high above and low angle raking views, are valued both as works of art and as tools for urban historians. Thomas Campanella, lecturer in MIT's Urban Studies Program, has painstakingly reassembled over 125 of these extraordinary images to form a definitive portrait of the American landscape.

In this lecture, Campanella shows how the new ways of seeing enabled by the airborne camera fundamentally changed our perceptions of the landscape and built environment, and made available a powerful new tool with which to survey, plan, manage and shape the city.

Lecture Details

Location: 34-101

About the Speaker

Thomas J. Campanella

Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Thomas J. Campanellais a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC, and a former Fulbright fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He previously was a Lecturer in City Design and Development in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.

Campanella is a recipient of the Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, and has also been awarded the John Reps and de Montequin Prizes from the Society for American City and Regional Planning History. In addition to his scholarly work, Campanella has written for Metropolis, Salon, Architectural Record, and other publications, and he is a former contributing writer for Wired.

Campanella has consulted on urban design and planning projects in China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan and the United States. He serves on the Chancellor's Committee for Buildings and Grounds at UNC, and on the Town Planning Board of Hillsborough, NC, where he recently completed an award-winning restoration of a 200 year-old home.