Committee: Marta Bottero (Politecnico di Torino – DIST), Carla Di Francesco (Fondazione Scuola dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali), Marco Folin (Università di Genova), Heleni Porfyriou (CNR – ISPC – Roma), Guido Zucconi (Università Iuav di Venezia).
Reporting: Guido Zucconi (Università IUAV di Venezia).
Great changes represent important watersheds to investigate the degree of urban adaptiveness. Big politico-economic and technological changes have deeply influenced the development of cities, peoples’ perception of them and urban historiography. The aim of this macrosession is to deal with similar disruptive changes throughout history (both in theoretical terms and through case studies) to the present from a comparative perspective and through a multidisciplinary understanding of urban studies. How have cities reacted to changes of different kinds? We call for a comprehensive understanding of sudden changes of status due to dramatic events such as revolutions, wars, political transformations, natural or human provoked catastrophes. We especially suggest dealing with comparative perspectives but in a heterogeneous historical and geographical context (e.g. Mediterranean after the discovery of America, eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapse, pandemics in specific regions and periods), see whether big crisis has given place to a new starting point and condition. Could it be a matter of crisis, standstill, or, on the contrary, of new beginnings, in a general framework of recovery. How has such a new condition manifested in several aspects, such as physical socio-economic, associated to the collective memory and controversial legacy of the recent past or on the heritage perception.
More specifically the macrosession will include (but it will not be limited to):
Politics, decision-making, multidimensional indicators and change of values. Stakeholders and “stake-needers”
Crisis and rebirth. Policies, decision making, multidimensional indicators, stakeholders and “stake-needers”. Decision processes in the context of urban transformations are driven by different objectives that reflect multi-faceted systems of values and stakeholders. The aim is to reflect on how this complexity has been addressed in real-world problems through diverse approaches such as evaluation, urban sociology, economic history, urban planning.
Big changes in a crosscutting comparative perspective. Processes of adaptation after strong political events.
Big political and commercial changes need strong adaptations in order to create new beginnings with modified hiearchical systems. A specific focus include the post-Cold War period.
The two Mediterraneans.
The aim is to broaden and challenge our Eurocentric research by investigating and comparing “East Asian Mediterranean”– also known as China Seas, as a geographical macroregion – with “European Mediterranean” in reference to topics, such as maritime networking, migration, modernization, institutions, infrastructural works, urbanization movements, public space building, traditional-versus-industrial construction techniques and materials, building models, in all historic periods, including colonial and post-colonial one.
Cultural heritage and changes.
Cultural Heritage discussed in sustainable goals’ perspective.
Traumatic memories and grieving processes in the adaptive history of urban communities.
Collective memories are no less elastic than individual ones: in them, past events coexist with – and are conditioned by – present experiences and future projections. It is precisely in this adaptability that lies the role of memory – so sensitive to breaks and losses, but at the same time so protean to overcome them - as a tool for identity building.
More topics
Interested persons applying can add more topics and interpretations
Download PDF