first image

The first jpg opened at random after finally reading the invite to Ideal Urbanity.

Modernist birdcage by Cristian Pogacean

Inspired by the trip we did today (Weissenhof among other places) I remebered a great piece by Cristian Pogacean - Modernist birdcage.

Read some more about the exhibition where he showed it and check out some pictures of modern architecture in Bucharest.

Iosif Kiraly's Reconstructions

Iosif Kiraly is a former fellow of Solitude. In his Reconstructions series he takes photos in a David Hockney manner and arranges them as a puzzle. Unlinke Hockney, he relates this process to the process of memory where different memories mix together and overlapse, thus, in his montages he is adding pictures from completely different contexts, or, in some cases, he returnes to the place of the photograph after a period of time, takes more pictures which he is adding to the old montage.

Stan Allen

Several of the fellows who have been selected in the architecture field were chosen by Stan Allen, currently dean of the Architecture School at Princeton. His research and infuential texts enter in resonance with some of the interests of this current project. Points and lines, published in 1999, gather several of his contributions. In particular the concept of field, as an interpretative tool for the city and therefore for the subsequent actions and projects aimed at its transformation has a particular depth.

SMAQ

At Solitude SMAQ, among other things, have designed and built wonderful baths. Outside Solitude they have researched the African city, Brazzaville and Kinshasa in particular.

Zoran Pantelic

Zoran is one of the very active members of Kuda, an interdisciplinary collective based in Novi Sad. Kuda and NAO collaborated for the project of a new stadium there. Of course it is not just about football...

Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss

NAO.

Annett Zinsmeister

Her.
and some other projects she is involved with, within a platform named ethicdesign.

Cobi van Tonder

Otoplasma.

Vlad Nanca

Vlad Nanca
Vlog
and a blog on Bucarest, called Bukresh.

Ligia Nobre

Some links about the participants.

Ligia Nobre.
exo.org

Exo.org activities have been presented at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, within the project On differences #2.

Initial text

“Searching for an ideal urbanity”.

Already in 1970 the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre identified the surge of a new social, economic, political and therefore spatial environment, which he coined “urban condition”. By this term Lefebvre suggested the progressive expansion of structures and systems of life, deriving from the city and its culture, but assuming a far larger territory as their site of deployment. While criticising urbanism as an authoritarian and instantly obsolete practice of control of the processes of transformation of the city, Lefebvre suggested the possibility to even consider the “urban condition” as disconnected and autonomous from the real presence of a recognizable city, transcending the physicality of its presence to be described just as a complex system of relationships, still in the process of transforming its corresponding environment.

If we consider the urban condition described by Lefebvre as a convincing metaphor for today’s world, an incessantly instable equilibrium between multiple and asymmetrical subjectivities, means of production, reproduction and renovation of sovereignty, “general intellect” and powerful market forces, the rules of cohabitation between its dwellers assume a crucial role in the definition of its temporal stability.

It is not a coincidence that the term urban, in many languages, means polite, as it implicates the necessity of a mutual adjustment and respect so as to guarantee some collective survival.

What would be then the contemporary forms of urbanity? How is the urban condition declined locally, reflecting its connection to specific traditions and trajectories? Which elements and adjustments migrate from place to place contributing to the hybridization and diffusion of its culture? Is space the ultimate depository where to decipher the traces of transformation?

Besides a descriptive and analytical approach that might provide a base of knowledge upon which to imagine potential tactics of improvement and transformation, much is needed to be said and proposed in terms of an ideal urbanity towards which to aspire.

The “ideal city” of the Renaissance would have been a city planned following a scientific and rational method, the place where to imagine the flourishing of a municipal democracy, under the guidance of an enlightened government. It set a model, with which were measured and evaluated coeval conditions and processes. It was the underlying impulse of change and modernization of the city during centuries.

Now that the city as we knew is finally melting, reasoning and proposing a possible ideal, urbanity might provide a conceptual and operative instrument to tune and develop political, cultural and aesthetical practices that might become inclusive and beneficial to the inhabitants of the new urban condition.

The proposed exhibition at Akademie Schloss Solitude, in March 2007, and the eventual collateral activities which might be delineated by the Solitude fellows, can be considered as an initial experiment, where to delineate a platform of dialogue and interchange on that matter: different experiences, documents, materials, methodological approaches and angles, representations, narratives, case studies, designs and proposals can be juxtaposed and articulated, suggesting some coordinates of an implicit and necessary debate.

What is ideal?

Ideal city vs Ideal ubanity?

Searching for an ideal urbanity

This is a blog about an ongoing project at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.
It involves several fellows. Some of them are actually at the Akademie, some others were there in the past years.
It is a collective activity, which central issue is "urbanity".
This term has been selected as it refers to the urban condition but also to the rules and behaviors that allow the gathering and co-existence of citizens.
So we will talk about an "ideal urbanity", or at least of its quest.

The project will be up by the end of March 2007 and last 6 weeks at least.