Trausti Valsson (Professor Emeritus University of Iceland, tv@hi.is) has recently published his auto-biography in English, free to read for all:
Shaping the Future: Ideas-Planning-Design
https://notendur.hi.is/~tv/Content/Books/Shaping%20the%20Future%20by%20Trausti%20Valsson.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/ShapingtheFuturebook/?fref=ts
Professor Valsson has published fourteen books. Four of them can be read for free on his homepage:
Shaping the Future (2016), Motun framtidar (2015), Planning in Iceland (2003) and How the World will Change – with Global Warming (2006)
Book Summary
This book is an auto-biography of Trausti Valsson (b. 1946), an Icelandic architect, planner, landscape architect, theoretician and a professor of planning at the University of Iceland. It gives his personal account of what shaped planning and design in the world and in Iceland as he experienced it in his lifetime. Valsson studied architecture and planning at TU West-Berlin from 1967 to 1972, during the height of the East-West tensions. These were also the hippie years, where the revolutionary students helped change many mechanistic ideas on planning and society.
After finishing in Berlin in 1972, Valsson got hired by the new Reykjavik Development and Planning Office. There he became one of the main authors of the first Green Plan and a plan for the new settlement areas to the North-East of the Reykjavik Peninsula.
During these years Valsson started working on a future plan for Iceland, consisting, for example, of roads connecting Iceland´s settlements, across the Central Highlands. He also started an overlay mapping project, mapping both the hazard- and resource areas of the country, which created a basis for his Iceland-Plan proposals. Work on this he continued at Berkeley and at the University of Iceland as he started teaching there in 1988. Many of his articles and books deal with this subject.
In three visits of Buckminster Fuller to Iceland, Valsson was introduced to thinking about the globe as a whole, and was intrigued by Fuller’s explanations on how different worldviews can be defined geometrically.
In 1980 Valsson got admitted to the PhD programme of Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, California. In the philosophical section of his dissertation he presented his argument that the Western, mechanistic worldview – created in science by Descartes, Bacon, Newton and others in the 17th century – was the underlying cause for today´s alienation, and that more holistic and integrative schemes were inherent in Eastern worldviews.
In order to be better able to write this section Valsson took three courses in the philosophy of science with Paul Feyerabend, who, following that, sat on his qualifying committee.
Valsson´s dissertation is called “A Theory of Integration for Design and Planning – Based on the Concept of Complementarity”(1987).During his Berkeley years Valsson also finalised two other books: The Planning History of Reykjavik (1986) and Ideas on the First Iceland Plan (1987). In 1988 – a year after Valsson returned to Iceland – he got an associate professor position in planning at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Iceland, and later a tenured professor position. In Iceland all state employees retire at 70. This important date in Valsson´s life was Jan 7, 2016. The last part of this book describes Valsson’s 27 years at the University.
The title of this present book: Shaping the Future – Ideas – Planning – Design, describes the central projects and ideas of Valsson. It gives an insight into how wide the field of his operation has been. In his professional life Valsson took an active part in public debate in Iceland, for example with his 150 articles and fourteen books. He has got many prices in competitions and also other public recognition.
Comments on the Book
“Shaping the Future should be required reading in introductory courses in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning for its insights into the field of planning in the 20th century and its ability to inspire students to be courageous, creative-thinkers.“ Joe McBride PhD, Professor at UC Berkeley
“The book does therefore not only present historical knowledge but is also a guide forward, which shows us the importance of thinking far ahead…“ Gudmundur Freyr Ulfarsson PhD, Professor of Transsportation Engineering at at the University of Iceland
“In my mind Valsson is the most original thinker in Iceland as it comes to planning. He has created large scale ideas that seem to see into the future, not just around the next corner, but also the next corner after that too..“ Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, film director
“… In this book the foremost future thinker of the nation, Trausti Valsson, looks back“ „… it should be an essential reading for students and anyone interested in the history of ideas, planning and the shaping of the built environment.“ Petur H. Armannsson, architect
