City: Seattle, WA

Venue: Town Hall, Event Info

Date: October 23, 2014

Time: 7:30-8:45 p.m.

Tickets: $5.00 Purchase tickets here

Seattle changes with each new construction project, park, and transit update. According to urbanist Jaime Lerner, these and other “pinpricks” in a city’s infrastructure have the power to revitalize neighborhoods and make them feel like home. Based on efforts during his time as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Urban Acupuncture explores how he transformed the city. He’ll share how even a single person has the power to help create a sustainable, livable city — and cite best practices from around the world that can be applied in Seattle and other places.

During his three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil in the 1970s and ‘80s, architect and urbanist Jaime Lerner transformed his city into a global model of the sustainable and livable community. From the pioneering Bus Rapid Transit system to parks designed to catch runoff and reduce flooding and the creation of pedestrian-only zones, Lerner has been the driving force behind a host of innovative urban projects. In more than forty years of work in cities around the globe, Lerner has found that changes to a community don’t need to be large-scale and expensive to have a transformative impact—in fact, one block, park, or a single person can have an outsized effect on life in the surrounding city.

In Urban Acupuncture, Lerner celebrates these “pinpricks” of urbanism—projects, people, and initiatives from around the world that ripple through their communities to uplift city life. With meditative and descriptive prose, Lerner brings readers around the world to streets and neighborhoods where urban acupuncture has been practiced best, from the bustling La Boqueria market in Barcelona to the revitalization of the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, South Korea. Through this journey, Lerner invites us to re-examine the true building blocks of vibrant communities—the tree-lined avenues, night vendors, and songs and traditions that connect us to our cities and to one another.

Urban Acupuncture is the first of Jaime Lerner’s visionary work to be published in English. It is a love letter to the elements that make a street hum with life or a neighborhood feel like home, penned by one of the world’s most successful advocates for sustainable and livable urbanism.