American Historical Association 2015 Annual Meeting Session 148 Urban History, Urban Planning, Architectural History & Civic Engagement  interdisciplinary encounters between past and present Jeffry M. Diefendorf, Chair Urban Past Present & Future in Black and White  the utility of figureground Michael Hebbert University College London m.hebbert@ucl.ac.uk Abstract Of all the media through which city planners engage with urban history, figure ground representation is the simplest and most ubiquitous. The technique uses monotone cartography to show the footprint of buildings, threedimensional solids appearing as figures against a blank ground. Within traditional urban space the Gestalt becomes reversed as the eye reads the pattern of streets, squares, parks and gardens, perceiving the outdoor voids as figure and buildings as ground. The technique lends itself well to diachronic analysis in which the complex variety of historical maps is reduced to consistent black and white imagery that can be compared over time. In twentiethcentury figuregrounds the destructive impacts of the automobile on urban space shows up with startling clarity. Postmodern urbanism has used figureground proactively to show how lost urban space might be restored, a classic example being the Stadtwende triptych  past, present, future  exhibited by the City of Berlin at the Venice Biennale of October 2000. With examples from Berlin and other settlements, my presentation will show how figureground is being used to promote historically awareness in planning for city futures.