December 2025
Forthcoming book co-edited by Markus Miessen
Reflections on Democracy and Urban Form book cover, 2025.
This book builds on conversations that took place in the Fall of 2024 at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design marking the release of the book Democracy and Urban Form, a co-publication by Harvard Design Press and Sternberg Press. The original book showcased a series of six lectures that the sociologist Richard Sennett gave under the same name at the GSD in the fall of 1981. The original lectures, which happened more than 40 years ago, addressed a much different political climate. Even so, Richard’s core insights into the connections between democracy and justice, matters of architecture and urban design, the growth of cities, cosmopolitanism, inclusion, free speech, and other related matters remain just as relevant today.nIn the spirit of reflecting on these urgencies, the GSD invited the political philosopher Michael Sandel to deliver a lecture that drew on themes from the new edition of his book Democracy’s Discontent. In his opening talk, which took place on the evening of Wednesday, October 9, Sandel encouraged the audience to consider what might account for the polarization that imperils democracy today, as well as what might be done about it? Beyond analyzing the forces that were about to decide the 2024 election, he proposed a bold project of civic renewal to reimagine the economy and empower citizens as participants in a shared public life. On Thursday, October 10, these provocations con-tinued during a panel discussion that included Richard Sennett, Diane Davis, Claire Zimmerman, Markus Miessen, and Miguel Robles-Durán. All reflected on Sandel’s talk, as well as on the state of democracy as it related more specifically to ar-
chitecture and the design and planning of cities and metropolitan regions. This book is the product of those conversations.
“Sennett’s six lectures at Harvard in 1981 remain fundamental to understanding how urbanism can mobilise democracy. But since then, as cities around the world have continued to grow, so have the gaps between those that have benefited from urbanisation and those that have not. In an increasingly polarised context, this book is a timely reminder that urban form is not an end but a means to political agency. It asks how design can shift gear from giving form to existing power structures to reforming power structures themselves.”
Finn Williams, City Architect of Malmö
“In a context of growing social, climatic, and economic uncertainty, how can we ensure that our cities become refuges where life prevails over capital? Achieving this is possible if we develop strategic urban planning that prioritizes removing barriers, obstacles, and inequalities. Building from this commitment to democratizing public space, this book examines what it truly means to open urban space to everything that unfolds within it. It approaches this task fearlessly, without preconceived assumptions, and with full awareness of its inherent contradictions, in order to confront the challenges and opportunities of our time.”
Janet Sanz, Former Deputy Mayor
for Urban Planning of Barcelona
