About Reading the city

Thanks so much for stopping by! If you’re curious about who is behind this project, it’s a bit of a community effort. I’m Julia Feld and I’m the one reading all your feedback, books recommendations (I promise we’re getting to them), and figuring out how to shape Reading the City.

This project initially started as a course at RISD where Gabriel Feld, my father, would walk students through various cities across the world, from Buenos Aires, to New York. I eavesdropped on many of these classes so perhaps to no surprise, when I studied at Columbia University, my curiosity for the urban environment continued and I studied Urban Studies with a concentration in Sociology.

Where my father focuses on the built environment and the architecture of the urban landscape, I dig into the more sociological and psychological elements of city life. Reading the City is a project which aims to allow us to see the many fibers which make up cities - from an architectural perspective, to the narratives of characters and people through book recommendations, to self-guided walking tours to deepen the context of the urban experience.

This project is currently in a very initial stage. Thanks for joining us on this literal journey.