Budapest symposium
Researching and shaping post-socialist urban space 1.
On the 7th of November 2010, from 2 - 7 pm
In Labor , 1053 Budapest, Képíró u. 6. Map
An event by the KÉK – Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre, the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and the Budapest University of Technology
In the past decades, political, economic, social and cultural changes in Central and Eastern Europe also led to an important transformation of cities. The region’s cities have struggled with similar problems and have often faced the same challenges. However, there is no sufficient exchange of experiences between these cities; this is the gap KÉK’s event is devoted to bridge. There has been many institutional answers offered to the dilemmas raised in these cities that have become veritable battlefields of opposing political, economic and social visions. Parallel to that, reflections of post-socialist urban transformation have also began at the intersections of professional, civil and cultural spheres.Cooperations between architects, artists and activists have resulted in numerous innovative and courageous ideas, proposals, projects.
What are the new methods and tools with which the contemporary city can be approached? Where are the junctions between architecture, urbanism, art and activism? What is the role of research and intervention in cultural projects addressing the city? What are the capacities of cultural projects to make pressure on decision-making institutions? The meeting is looking for answers to these questions.
In the first part of the meeting, the results of the parallel research project “Anatomy of a Street” will be presented, where besides the presentations of Ola Wasilkowska (member of the Warsaw foundation Bęc Zmiana) and Dagmar Petrikova (Slovak Institute of Technology), the project by Steierhoffer Eszter (Art Network Agency) and Levente Polyák (KÉK) prepared for the London Festival of Architecture will also be introduced. In the second part of the event, Grzegorz Piątek, representing the Warsaw organization Bęc Zmiana, will talk about how art has become a part of the debate about Warsaw. Following him, Jakob Hurrle, director of the Prague-based Multicultural Centre will present the centre’s programmes investigating urban phenomena related to international migration. Constantin Goagea, from the Bucharest group Zeppelin will talk about his organization’s approach to finding solutions for dysfunctional public spaces in Bucharest’s housing estates and about the urban report project. In the final presentation, Ivan Kucina, teacher at the Faculty of Architecture University of Belgrade and at the Parsons the New School of Design in New York, will talk about self-regulated urbanity in contemporary cities.
Program
