Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Geographisches Institut

Einladung

Prof. Dr. Maroš Krivy

Estonian Academy of Arts

Space half empty? Non-design and capital in Barcelona and Berlin

Geographers have been at the forefront of research into urban wastelands, rubble areas and other indeterminate landscapes. But what does it mean to make indeterminacy into a desirable feature of cities? This talk focuses on histories of architecture and planning to explore how ‘non-design’ shaped, and was shaped by, neoliberal restructuring at the turn of the century. This is a contemporary history of urban expert ideas in two European cities.

In Barcelona, the Catalan architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales made a powerful argument for the intrinsic value of terrain vagues, even as he played a key role in the city’s massive Olympic-led redevelopment.

In Berlin, the collective Urban Catalyst shaped the policy of giving unused sites over to creative entrepreneurs: even as ‘temporary use’ challenged conservative planning it did little to address gentrification and other injustices. This talk is based on my ongoing research investigating how progressive urban experts in Europe and North America accommodated capital.