Rahul Mehrotra

Dean Department of Urban Planning and Design. Harvard Graduate School of Design, Boston

Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on topics related to architecture, conservation and urban planning in Mumbai and India. Among his publications are, coauthor of Bomaby - The cities Within, which covers the urban history of the city from 1600's to the present; Banganga - Sacred Tank; Public Spaces Mumbai, Anchoring a City Line, a history of the city's commuter railway, and Bombay to Mumbai-Changing Perspectives. He has also worked as co-author of Conserving an Image Center-The Fort Precinct in Bombay. Based on this study and the recommendations, the historic Fort area Mumbai was declared as an enclosure in 1995. Among his other publications are books on Victoria Terminus Station, a world heritage, in Mumbai, the impact of conservation legislation, and most recently in the Art Deco buildings of the city. In 2000 he edited a book for UIA that highlights the end of the century and title of the 20th century architecture in the South Asian region. Mehrotra has also edited the first of three debates documents in Urban Michigan 2004.

He has been actively involved in civic and urban affairs in Mumbai, being in commissions for historic preservation issues and environmental, with neighboring groups, and from 1994 to 2004, as Executive Director of the Research Institute for Urban Design. He studied at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (CEPT), and graduated with a Masters in Urban Design at GSD. He has taught at the University of Michigan (2003-2007) and the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT (2007-2010).

Edgar Pieterse

Director of African Centre for Cities. University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Edgar Pieterse is dean of urban policy and research South Africa. Director of the African Centre for Cities and professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town. Comes the scope of practice of the policies, having experience as a special consultant to the government of the Westen Cape Province (2004-2007) and leader of several urban centers thought (1990-2004) before his term in office. Some of its major recent books: Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities (in press), City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development (2008), and Counter-Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in the Cape Town region (2010).