Berlin
Theme of the Conference:The role of open spaces in the transformation of urban landscape
Period:12th-14th March 2013
Organizers:University of Bologna, Laboratory for Research on the City (ISS)
Collaborators
Italian Institute of Culture in Berlin
Municipality of Bologna
Medd (French Minister of Ecology and Compatible Development)
UNISCAPE
Technical University of Marche, Interdepartmental Center for Research on Landscape (CIRP)
Venue:Italian Institute of Culture in Berlin
Short Films by Pasolini on Orte and Sabaudia, with English subtitles.
Aims:
In the Western tradition it is well known that drawing is father of all arts. This is equally true of Vasari as of Leonardo, Raffaelo and Michelangelo. Drawing is the founding idea, the essence and structuring thought of representation; it concerns both figures and things. Nature in its entirety can be portrayed therein. In this respect, the portrayal of nature has been treated in magisterial fashion by Erwin Panofsky. Drawing holds experience and feeling in a grandiose arrangement of signs. It illustrates, describes and plans the whole world, making it visible.
The city is also fundamentally a drawing, a work of vision and imitation, a work of shapes, outlines, masses and surfaces, an art of planning and technique, an overall assemblage for a wondrous poesis in which an operative and ideal scheme can be enclosed at the same time. The fortuity of humanity’s making and building over three millennia has been rewoven in an organizing framework. From ancient, Greek, Roman and Renaissance models up to nineteenth century ones, the city, too, is the result of a drawing, or poietic conception.
But for over a century drawing has been dismantled. It has lost its center while civilization is living the crisis of its symbolic functioning. The structure that held the city together as an idea – however heterogeneous, has been smashed: practices, techniques, language, and customs have undone the whole. That whole has now imploded into a myriad of rivulets that deprive it of meaning while expanding into threads of new, anonymous, disordered growth. By so doing, the city spreads into prevailing chaos and randomness. In our epoch of technical reproduction, it is the conflicting and incoherent fragments that hold sway as can be seen in photography, cinema and electronic virtuality.
Cities have felt the effects of these changes both in terms of their growth, their architectural style, and in the quality of life, as well as in the particular awareness that these have engendered.
The urban landscape is constantly changing, moving from one state of equilibrium to another. In this continual change, both the character and the role of open spaces assume different meanings. At this stage, Landscape Researchers and Planners are required to discuss some key points in conference. These key points include multidimensional sustainability, ecosystem services, and the increasing social need for new conceptions of the urban as well as the rural landscape. Therefore, there are two main objectives: 1) to reflect on the results of projects and experiences in the organization and management of urban and peri-urban open space, and also on some projects under review and correction, 2) to propose new possible lines of development for the planning and management of space viewed from the perspective of a common European vision that respects local identities.
Directed by Rita Colantonio and RaffaeleMilani
mid-March 2013
5 p.m.
Inaugural Evening
Italian Institute of Berlin
Round table on the theme of peri-urban open spaces, with particular emphasis on the areas within and around airports. Projects to illustrate: the design and planning of the impact of the Nantes airport as landscape, the renovation of some urban green spaces.
Second Day, 9 a.m. - 6.30 p.m.
Morning
Session on ecological aspects
The multifunctionality of urban and peri-urban space – chairman: Yves Lunginbhul
The notion of multidimensional sustainability and its having now become indispensable to the harmony of urban development. This kind of sustainability forms the basis of projects and investigations concerning the organization or reorganization of the ecology of urban, peri-urban, ex-urban, and extra-urban open spaces.
Afternoon
Session on economic aspects
Urban fragmentation and open spaces in cities undergoing transformation – chairman: Bas Pedroli
The reversal of traditional perspectives and the politics of open spaces as the basis for urban development: reflections on local and European law as it pertains to economic transformation and geography.
Third Day
Session on the social and aesthetic aspects
The social dimension of projects directed toward the recomposition of the urban landscape: European vision and local identity – chairman: Flavio Venturelli
Social sustainability, local identity, and aesthetic design of territories or landscapes according to the principles of the European Convention on landscape: the role of the designer, the project manager, and the population.
Conclusion
The exhibition of a document edited by the chairmen and held in common by all three sections(same names as the first evening). The document, after possible re-elaboration, will remain as a testimony of the conference and can be published in a specialized journal, on various websites, etc.
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