The exhibition Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil will open to the public on Friday, October 2, and will be on display at MAS through Friday, December 4, 2009.

In a world of decreasing oil and increasing climate change, Re-Imagining Cities showcases innovative ideas, projects, initiatives and policies from around the globe that can help us re-think how we inhabit urban areas. The exhibition contains a range of interventions: from car sharing to citywide environmental initiatives to futuristic floating cities. While no one solution or set of solutions is the answer, the projects displayed in the exhibition show us the spectrum of possibilities: the changes we can make on our own and the changes we will make together, the changes we can make today, and the changes we will make tomorrow.

This exhibition accompanied the 2008 symposium of the same name at the University of Pennsylvania. The symposium marked the 50th Anniversary of the 1958 University of Pennsylvania/Rockefeller Foundation “Conference on Urban Design Criticism,” whose participants included Jane Jacobs, Louis Kahn, Kevin Lynch, Ian McHarg, Lewis Mumford, and I.M. Pei.