Book Presentation: STADT NATUR RECHTE

About this event

In their jointly written book, Katja Schechtner, Alex Putzer and Wojciech Czaja explore how cities around the world are beginning to grant legal rights to bees, rivers, whales and entire ecosystems. Schechtner is an urban researcher and planner whose work has taken her from the OECD to the Asian Development Bank and MIT; Putzer is a legal scholar at NYU School of Law who advises institutions including the UN on the rights of nature; Czaja is an architecture journalist and author. Together they have documented real pioneering projects – from Curridabat in Costa Rica, where bees are actively included in urban planning, to the Seine river being made an honorary citizen of Paris, to right-of-way rules for marine mammals in San Francisco Bay. With specialist essays and interviews featuring city planners, an environmental activist, and a London-based artist collective, the book paints a nuanced picture of how cities became underestimated biodiversity hotspots and what rules a pan-ecological coexistence requires. This evening the three authors present their book in the DAM Auditorium and invite discussion on rethinking urban nature in legal and planning terms. A rewarding and accessible evening for anyone interested in architecture, urban ecology, or the intersection of law and the environment.