calendario eventi  :: 

X

6/7/2004

Urban Traumas

Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona CCCB, Barcelona

The City and Disasters
7-11 July 2004

This year, once again, the CCCB is promoting a series of activities around the contemporary city from a multidisciplinary perspective. The debates 'Urban Traumas. The City and Disasters' have been conceived in order to open up a space for reflection on the relations between the city and catastrophe. This symposium will coincide with the awarding of the Third European prize for Urban Public Space on 7 July and a Days of Dance , a dance festival in different urban settings that constitutes an encounter between two of the arts: dance and architecture.

With the collaboration of:
The New School University
Consolat General d'Estats Units d'Amèrica
Culture 2000
Marató de l'espectacle
Fòrum Universal de les Cultures – Barcelona 2004

DEBATES
URBAN TRAUMAS. The City and Disasters
7-9 July 2004

While, since its origins, the city has been conceived as a space of civilization and hope, its very condition has also made it more vulnerable to external and internal risks that have frequently led to catastrophe, determining its growth and evolution just as much as its utopias have done. However, contemporary cities in particular seem to be increasingly exposed to disaster: uncontrolled growth, population density, and the speed of technological change have turned cities into spaces that often generate fear and anxiety. Moreover, they have often become prime targets in armed conflicts and attacks, which reinforces a sense of defencelessness among their inhabitants. Rather than disaster being limited to real or possible particular events, there is a growing impression in today's cities that its presence is permanent and that it is slowly becoming part of 'normality'.

This is the context in which the CCCB, with the collaboration of Abdoumaliq Simone from The New School University (New York), has proposed a symposium that will open up a space for reflection on the relations between the city and catastrophe, with specific reference to the cases of different cities around the world and the array of risks that confront the city today (from natural, through to social, political and technological disasters), while also maintaining an overall perspective on the features that are common to all these situations.
___________

OPENING SESSION Wednesday 7 July 'The Vulnerable City'

7 p.m.
The problems that have arisen with political, social and technical changes in the contemporary city have resulted in the emergence of new vulnerabilities and these have contributed towards turning the city into a space of defencelessness. To what extent is the idea of disaster inherent in the notion of "city" and what are the new vulnerabilities to which the contemporary city is exposed?

'Terror and space'
Peter Sloterdijk, professor of Philosophy at the Hochschule für Gestaltung of Karlsruhe

'New Urban Vulnerabilities'
Nigel Thrift , professor of Geography at the Oxford University.

Chair: Josep Ramoneda , director of the CCCB
___________

Thursday 8 July. 'Imagination and Reconstruction'

10 a.m. – 2 p.m. 'Imagining the Disaster, Remembering the Trauma'

Over the centuries, catastrophes have been part of the history of cities, determining their urban planning and entering into the imaginary of their citizens through art and literature. How is the possibility of catastrophe imagined and how is its memory constructed?

'Chronicle from Havana'
Eusebio Leal, Official Historian of the City of Havana

'Constructing the image of the city'
Christine Boyer, School of Architecture, Princeton University

'The Death of the City'
Richard Ingersoll, School of Architecture, Syracuse University, Florence

'Catastrophic Commemorations'
Vyjayanthi S. Rao , Department of Anthropology at the New School University, New York, and secretary-General of PUKAR, Mumbai

Chair: Josep Mª Montaner, architect and professor of Composition at the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona

4 p.m. – 8 p.m. 'After the Ruins'
What kinds of approaches constitute the guidelines to the reconstruction of a city? Eradicating the traces of the disaster, or incorporating them into a new profile of the city? The destruction of a city also offers the opportunity to rethink it, to try to overcome the vulnerable features that have led to this destruction and to re-establish collective life.

'Let the Dead be Dead. The Role of Memory in the Reconstruction of Beirut'
Maha Yahya, Center for Behavioural Research, American University of Beirut

'The Informal City: the F avelas of Rio de Janeiro'
Jorge Jáuregui , architect, author of the programme Favela Barrio , Rio de Janeiro, recipient of the Veronica Rudge Green Prize from the University of Harvard

'What is Natural in a Natural Disaster?'
Joaquim Tintoré , director of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, University of the Balearic Islands – Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Mallorca

'Colours'
Edi Rama , Mayor of Tirana

Chair: Luis Fernández-Galiano, architect and professor at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid
___________

Session 3. Friday 9 July. 'Permanent Disaster'

10 a.m. – 2 p.m. 'Living With Catastrophe'

There are times when the city is unable to deal with the disaster that has struck it so that it becomes structural, permanent. Such is the case of cities that have been the centre of armed conflicts, and in regions that have always been exposed to natural disasters or that are victims of some accident with long-term effects. To what extent can the permanence of a disaster come to endanger the very notion of 'city'?

'Urbicide. City, Warfare and States of Emergency'
Stephen Graham , professor of Urban Technology at Durham University

'Refugee Camps: the Emergence of a New Urbanity?'
Michel Agier , Centre d'Études Africaines, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales , Paris

'Chernobyl: Chronicle of the Future'
Svetlana Aleksiévich , writer and journalist

Chair: Rafael Vila-Sanjuán, general director of Médicos Sin Fronteras - Spain

4 p.m. – 8 p.m. 'Metropolis: the Disaster Within'

In the great metropolises, a lack of appropriate policies can lead to segregation and exclusion in endemic catastrophes that appear to have no solution, preventing thus the possibility of collective urban coexistence. Fear takes root among the citizens and the fractures become visible. Does the uncontrolled growth of the metropolis necessarily imply the death of the city?

'Heretical Urbanism in Africa'
Abdoumaliq Simone , assistant director, International Affairs Program, The New School University, New York

'Exile Geographies'
Lindsay Bremner , professor of Architecture at the Witswatersrand University, Johannesburg

' Hip-hop, Periphery, and Spatial Segregation in São Paulo'
Teresa Caldeira , professor of Anthropology at the University of California (Irvine) and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas , UNICAMP, Brazil

' Life as a Dress Rehearsal: on Calamities and Catastrophes '
Manuel Cruz, professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona

Presenter: Francesc Muñoz, Department of Urban Geography at the Autonomous University of Barcelona

Free entry
Simultaneous translation is offered
Previous inscription: cursos@cccb.org
___________

EUROPEAN PRIZE FOR URBAN PUBLIC SPACE
7 July at 11:30 noon

Award of the Third European Prize for Urban Public Space

The European Prize for Urban Public Space fosters urban planning projects that are primarily concerned with recovering public space in its civic and social dimensions. One hundred and sixty-nine projects from twenty different countries have been presented on this third occasion of awarding the Prize, which is organised on a biennial basis from the CCCB, along with the Institut Français d'Architecture in Paris, the Architecture Foundation of London, the ArchitekturZentrum of Vienna, and the Nederlands Architectuur Instituut of Rotterdam. A sample of the most outstanding projects presented may be seen at the on-line site of the European Archive on Urban Public Space

DANCE DAYS
9 to 11 July

Dance Days is a festival of dance in urban landscapes. Buildings, parks, streets and squares come to life with urban interest in this meeting in the public space between two arts: architecture and dance. The main theme of this year's programme is cultural diversity, with a view to encouraging the individual and collective development of the citizens who make up our society.

The Festival will take place in various spaces around Barcelona. More information: www.marato.com.
_________

DAY BY DAY PROGRAMME

Wednesday 7 July 2004

11.30 a.m Awarding of the 3rd European Prize for Urban Public Space

Debates Urban traumas. The city and disasters
7 p.m. The vulnerabilities of the city. Speakers: Peter Sloterdijk and Nigel Thrift
_________

Thursday 8 July 2004

Debates Urban traumas. The city and disasters
10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Imagining disaster, remembering trauma. Speakers: Richard Ingersoll, Eusebio Leal, Christine Boyer, Vyjayanthi S. Rao and Josep Ma. Muntaner.

4 p.m. – 8 p.m. After the ruins . Speakers: Joaquim Tintoré, Maha Yahya, Jorge Jáuregui, Edi Rama and Luís Fernández Galiano.
_________

Friday 9 July 2004

Debates Urban traumas. The city and disasters
10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Living with catastrophe . Speakers: Stephen Graham, Michel Agier and Svetlana Aleksievich.

4 p.m. – 8 p.m. Metropolis: the interior disaster. Speakers: Manuel Cruz, Lindsay Bremner, Teresa Caldeira, Abdoumaliq Simone and Francesc Muñoz

Dance Days
10.30 p.m. Space in movement: opening night (music, a drink, chat, improvisations, screenings, etc.) Le Cirque Desacordée – Dimitri and Line (France), Alias Compagnie (Switzerland), Teresa García Valenzuela (Barcelona, winning finalist of the Maspalomas choreography competition).
_________

Saturday 10 July 2004

Dance Days
5.30 – 8.30 p.m. Workshop for young immigrants: Union Dance-Victor Zambrana (MACBA), Retazos – Cuba– (CCCB), Flavia Tapies –Brazil– (CCCB), Le Cirque Desacordée – Dimitri and Julien –France– (Pati Manning), Dominik Borucki –Germany– (CCCB-J. Corominas), Alias Compagnie –Switzerland– (MACBA), Membros –Brazil– (MACBA), Trànsit – Barcelona– (MACBA). Installation-action by Àngels Margarit –Barcelona–

10.30 p.m. Space in movement : short pieces (music, a drink, chat, improvisations, screenings, etc.) Membros (Brazil), Emili Gutiérrez (Barcelona), Retazos (Cuba), Verve (Brazil), Dança Alegrete (Brazil), Victor Zambrano (Seville).
_________

Sunday 11 July 2004

Dance Days
10.30 p.m. Space in movement: final party (music, a drink, chat, improvisations, screenings,etc.). Flavia Tapies (Brazil), Damián Muñoz (closing show).

Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona
Montalegre, 5. 08001 Barcelona
T. 93 306 41 00

stampa

permanent link