Projects and Inventions


THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE:
ON RETRIEVING VALUABLE CULTURAL RESOURCES

Noticing the disintegration of the personal archives of one's deceased friends is an ordinary facet of the sadness of their passing. Of artists and scholars, of the creative class, it is said, "Their work lives on." But does it? If as much effort were put into carrying the effects of a creative mind into the future as is put into keeping it oxygenated for a few weeks longer, the American cultural heritage would be much the richer. Not that our proposition would be sharply for the one or the other. It is rather that much can be done to invent a low-cost socially beneficial system of managing intellectual estates, which would operate also to resolve the typical anxieties of creators and their intimates. The scenarios are well-known; I shall type them.


Metropolis 1976

The problems of older cities in America are many and grave. The establishment of new cities, in consequence, has not received much attention. Apart from a few general recommendations, including a report that urged the construction of over one hundred of them, little has been done to bring forward plans. costs, and arguments for cities of a half-million or more residents. At this moment it would appear that the bicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence will suffer from a shortage of immediate events to celebrate, and it seems to this writer that the achievement of a new metropolis by 1976 would contribute substantially to this end. I have therefore set down here some notes on a research, design, and teaching program to produce the intellectual cadre for Metropolis 1976. Assuming success in these efforts, I am suggesting how a group of independent and commercial sector leaders can take over and build upon the plan.