Fables of the Reconstruction
A seminar of 3 afternoon sessions about the rebuilding of destroyed cities, taking place on Friday 15, 22 & 29 November 2024
Tickets for the seminar are available for 150 euro. Special fees apply for special situations. For more info please send an email to info[@]schoolforthecity.nl
Fables of the Reconstruction - Part II
The Independent School for the City is organising another edition of the Fables of the Reconstruction seminar in November 2024. Building on the insights from last year, we will this time focus on the mechanisms behind the reconstruction of cities, contrasting the involvement of global conglomerates and multinationals - often characterised by generic concepts - with the need for locally rooted solutions.
The seminar departs from the notion that rebuilding a destroyed city is not just about replacing or rebuilding its infrastructure and architecture. It is about making the choice which and whose city should be rebuilt. It is a choice as much about the Idea of the city as about its form. A reconstructed city is not just a brick and mortar replacement of everything that was damaged, but also a story of the history and the future of the city. A heavily idealised and edited story that tells of power structures and ideology. In the reconstruction of cities ruined by war or natural disaster, questions of identity, ethnicity, history and culture are paramount.
From the reconstructed heart of the city of Rotterdam, this seminar will look at the rebuilding of Ukraine and Turkey and the histories of the reconstruction of New Orleans and Gaza. We see how the reconstruction is initiated by globally operating consultancy firms, finance companies and construction and design offices, which often have a very close relationship with the American government and international institutions like the World bank and the IMF and stand for an extreme neo-liberal attitude towards ‘nation building’ and the (re)construction of cities. At the same time, we invited coalitions of designers who try to use tactical and participatory urbanism to work from the existing context, building upon the properties of the place and the needs of the residents. These coalitions often have good intentions and are supported by a large number of spatial professionals all over the world, but it is difficult for them to gain a real foothold in the bureaucratic processes.
In this seminar we will try to understand the place of consultants, bankers, politicians, engineers, planners, architects and activists, and how they influence the development of visions and plans. Through lectures and conversations the seminar will provoke an exchange of ideas across borders. Rotterdam will be the fitting background against which this seminar will play out.
Programme
SESSION #1 - FRIDAY 15 NOV. 2024
113:00 - 14:15 Introduction by Wouter Vanstiphout & Michelle Provoost (45min) + conversation
14:30 - 15:15 Online presentation by Julie Lawson (30min) + conversation
15:30 - 16:30 Presentation by Palii
Anastasiia and Oleksandra Naryzhna of the Ukrainian NGO Urban Reform
16:30 - 17:00 Wrap-Up
SESSION #2 - FRIDAY 22 NOV. 2024
13:00 - 13:30 Recap and introduction
13:30 - 15:00 Presentation by Alexander d' Hooghe of ORG - Permanent Modernity about working on large scale reconstruction plans
15:00 - 17:00 Lectures on the reconstruction of Turkey
SESSION #3 - FRIDAY 29 NOV. 2024
13:00 - 17:00 Presentations and conversations with various experts about the content, relevance and possibilities of making a manual for the reconstruction of destroyed cities.
Seminar Details
For whom is this Seminar?
Any professional background: Sociologists, historians, writers, and other urban thinkers. Planners and architects and other designers. Artists, activists, grassroots organisations and other urban do-ers
What does the seminar offer?
Lectures by experts and tutors. Conversations with likeminded professionals from a wide array of disciplines. Being part of a learning community.
What will you learn?
Different approaches to reconstruction of cities after destruction. The decisions, ideology and global powers behind the reconstruction of cities. A historical view of urban destruction and reconstruction. Seeing architecture and urban planning in terms of ideas and memory. A way to look at current events in terms of long term developments.
About the Speakers
Wouter Vanstiphout
Wouter Vanstiphout is part of the Dean Team of Independent School for the City and partner of Crimson Historians & Urbanists. He is an architectural historian and researcher who has written extensively on urbanism and spatial politics. From 2008 - 2010, Wouter held the chair Design & Politics at the TU Delft and from 2012 to 2016, he was a member of the national advisory council on the environment and infrastructure.
Michelle Provoost
Michelle Provoost is part of the Independent School for the City’s Deans Team, partner of Crimson Historians and Urbanists, and director of the International New Town Institute. She is an architectural historian specialised in urban planning history, postwar architecture and contemporary urban development.
Palii Anastasiia & Oleksandra Naryzhna (Urban Reform)
Palii Anastasiia and Oleksandra Naryzhna are both architects and urbanists at Urban Reform, an NGO that was founded in 2014, the year when Ukrainians changed power in the country through the Revolution of Dignity, the war in Donbass. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, Urban Reform is working to create temporary solutions to provide housing for IDPs, researching best practices for rebuilding cities after destruction and gathering all efforts to be useful to our country and our cities.
Alexander D’Hooghe
Alexander D’Hooghe is co-founder of ORG Permanent Modernity - a design agency and think tank based in Brussels, Antwerp and New York City, founder of Solv a tech company providing predictive analytics and intelligence, formerly a tenured professor at MIT and the founding director of the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT. With ORG he works around the globe on design and planning projects, as well as on the advanced analysis of project performance, and the management of implementation processes across the scales of architecture, urbanism and systems.