About the Book

mise-en-scène 1 … the arrangement of the scenery, properties, and actors onstage … 2 a: the physical setting of an action  b: ENVIRONMENT, MILIEU

Mise-en-Scène is an immersive exploration of the social lives of urban landscapes—the actors and actions that compose the daily theater of urban life. Conceived as a unique collaboration between an urbanist, Chris Reed, and a photographer, Mike Belleme, the book combines photo essays, original maps and drawings, newly commissioned essays, excerpts from historical writings, and interviews with residents. The result is a rigorous and artful examination of the social, cultural, environmental, and economic challenges of life in American cities today.  

Richly illustrated and designed to appeal to a broad audience of architects, designers, photographers, and general public interested in the contemporary city, the book is centered around seven visual case studies depicting life in seven American cities: Los Angeles, Galveston, St. Louis, Green Bay, Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Boston. Each case study combines black-and-white photography—take from street level, often in intimate detail—with annotations and drawings that highlight urban forms. An inherent interconnectedness across geographies, scales, and situations emerges throughout the book. Reed and Belleme demonstrate how a celebratory moment can be felt equally in Green Bay’s compact downtown or amidst the chaos and sprawl of Los Angeles, and how while the tensions present in the redevelopment of previously inundated waterfronts in Boston or Galveston can be understood in parallel with an urgent set of conversations on race and identity in St. Louis. 

Six essays by a diverse and interdisciplinary group of contributors prompt further reflection on the visual case studies. Chris Reed writes on the social lives of cities, designer Sara Zewde on the image of the city, artist De Nichols about social equity and identity, ecologist Nina-Marie Lister on the climate imperative, curator Mimi Zeiger on cities and culture, and architect Julia Czerniak on design practice.

Through this thoughtful exploration of everyday moments and the urbanism that supports them, Reed and Belleme present new opportunities for creating direct interaction between citizens, and propose an ecological and social focus for city-building around a concept of common ground.

Comparable titles

Extending from a long tradition of artist projects and books on the city such as Sophie Calle’s M’as tu Vue, Tim Hetherington’s Long Story Bit by Bit, Laia Abril’s The Epilogue, and John Berger and Jean Mohr’s Another Way of Telling, combined with urban planning classics such as The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, and Michael Maltzan’s No More Play, the book seeks to provide an  expansive idea of the potential influences on and implications of design for
the city.

Key Selling Points

• Critical yet accessible examination of the current state of planning, urbanism, and civic design across America

• Unique collaboration between an urbanist and a photographer

• Mike Belleme’s work has been featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, and regularly appears in the New York Times.

• Chris Reed is a longtime professor of landscape urbanism at Harvard Graduate School of Design and his studio Stoss Landscape Urbanism is a winner of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture  

• Book design by award-winning graphic design and editorial studio IN-FO.CO

Events and Publicity Opportunities

• Public presentations are being planned for all seven featured cities, to take place in libraries, bookstores, galleries, and other cultural and civic venues.

• Additional exhibitions and events in development: 

• Harvard Graduate School of Design, Fall 2020

• University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design

• USC School of Architecture, Los Angeles

• The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington D.C.  

• Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis

Author Bios

Chris Reed is Founding Director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, and Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is recognized internationally as a leading voice in the transformation of landscapes and cities, and he works alternately as a researcher, strategist, teacher, designer, and advisor. Reed is particularly interested in the relationships between landscape and ecology, infrastructure, social spaces, and cities. Current work includes projects focused on climate change, waterfront revitalization, and social equity across North America. Based in Boston with a foot in LA.

Mike Belleme is a freelance photographer based in Asheville, North Carolina. His work ranges from long-form documentary to assignment-based editorial photography, photo journalism, and portraiture. His practice involves photographing from a space of emotional availability and vulnerability and exploring themes involving connection and disconnection from that space. In 2017 he was awarded 2nd place in the “Feature Story” category in POYI “Pictures of the Year International” photo contest, and was recognized again  in 2018 in the portrait category. Clients include National Geographic, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, New York Times Magazine, Google, Esquire, Outside Magazine, Fortune, Stern, The New York Times, Propublica and Al Jazeera America.

Contributor Bios

Sara Zewde is a founding principal of Studio Zewde of Harlem, NY, which is focused on landscape architecture, urbanism, and public art. 

Nina-Marie Lister is an ecologist and planner, Graduate Program Director and Associate Professor in the School of Urban + Regional Planning at Ryerson University in Toronto.

De Nichols is a visual artist, designer, and Social Impact Design Principal of Civic Creatives in St. Louis.

Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor, curator, and instigator working at the intersection of architecture and media cultures.  

Julia Czerniak is associate dean and professor of architecture at Syracuse University where she teaches on landscape theory and criticism. 

Notes on Design

The book’s design by Los Angeles-based IN-FO.CO is primarily composed of black-and-white photo reproductions overlaid with sketches and annotations. Interspersed between image sections are essays printed on specialty colored paper with a narrower trim. Triple-barrel gatefolds, also interspersed between the photo essays, introduce each city with a map.

Specifications

• 10.75 x 8 inches, portrait

• 256 pages

• Cloth-bound hardcover with tip-on images on front and back 

• Foil stamp on front and spine

Contents

• Foreword

• Visual Essay: Los Angeles

• Essay: Chris Reed

• Visual Essay: Galveston

• Essay: De Nichols 

• Visual Essay: St Louis

• Essay: Nina-Marie Lister

• Visual Essay: Green Bay

• Essay: Sara Zewde

• Visual Essay: Ann Arbor

• Essay: Mimi Zeiger

• Visual Essay: Detroit  

• Essay: Julia Czerniak

• Visual Essay: Boston

• Afterword

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