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MAO Debates

WHAT’S GOING ON?The new Dynamics of Public Space

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MAO Debates

WHAT’S GOING ON?The new Dynamics of Public Space

8 – 9 May 2014Museum of Architecture and Design

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WHAT’S GOING ON?

The new Dynamics of Public Space

Public space is freedom. It is a place of differences expressed by everyday life, rhythms, rituals, nature and history. It allows us to meet one another, connect and work together in ways organized or entirely spontaneous. As a space of democratic political participation and one in which new economies emerge, public space enables society to transform itself. In this light, it is an essential component of quality of life that goes beyond measurable indexes evaluating cities or localities in a competitive context. The most interesting happenings in public space occur in the background of the newly designed furniture and smooth pavements, where people interact and find new uses for space in ways previously unimagined.

Therefore, beyond its physical appearance, the social situations and goings-on of public space are today highly relevant with regard to its reorganization and transformation. Architects, designers and urban planners increasingly expand their role into strategic fields, dealing simultaneously with the structure of public space and with its dynamics. Their aim is to improve the self-organization of citizens and facilitate social interaction within the communities and their relationship to the environment. Thus, public space is becoming a common platform for thinking and production that overcomes the tensions between policy and planning.

The New Dynamics of Public Space conference, curated by Matevž Čelik, will discuss the impact of contemporary public space practices on urban economy, politics and quality of life. It is part of the Europe City project.

Matevž Čelik is an architect, architectural researcher and writer. In 2002 he co-founded Trajekt, Institute for Spatial Culture in Ljubljana. He contributed to Oris magazine in Zagreb as well as mag-azines like Domus, A+U and others. He published a book New Architecture in Slovenia in 2007. Since 2010 he runs Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana. Under his leadership, MAO has established new program of debates and exhibitions. He is a member of the Jury for the European Prize for Urban Public Space in 2012 and an expert for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award.

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THE PROGRAMME OF THE CONFERENCE

Thursday, 8. maj 20149.00 Registration9.30 Welcome: mag. Tanja Bogataj, Ministry of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning9.45 Introduction: Matevž Čelik

10.00 Ethel Baraona Pohl, dpr-barcelona, Barcelona10.45 Michiel van Iersel, Non-fiction, Failed Architecture, Amsterdam11.30 Discussion, moderator: Jan Boelen, Z33, Hasselt

12.00 Cofee Break

12.15 Ana Kutleša, [BLOK], Zagreb13.00 Axel Timm, raumlaborberlin, Berlin13.45 Discussion, moderator: Anja Planišček, Faculty of Architecture, Ljubljana

14.15 Lunch

15.00 Marko Sančanin, Platforma 9.81, Zagreb15.45 Ricardo Gomes, Planning for Protest, Berlin16.30 Discussion, moderator: Matevž Čelik, MAO, Ljubljana

Friday, 9. maj 20149.00 Morning Cofee9.30 Welcome: Uroš Grilc, minister, Ministry of Culture

10.00 Rianne Makkink, Studio Makkink & Bey, Rotterdam10.45 Marko Peterlin, IPoP, Ljubljana (skype) 11.30 Discussion, moderator: Matjaž Uršič, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ljubljana

12.00 Cofee Break

12.15 Marko Fatur, LUZ, Ljubljana13.00 Alex Axinte, studioBASAR, Bucharest 13.45 Discussion, moderator: Mika Cimolini, Elastik, Ljubljana

14.15 Lunch

15.00 Alenka Korenjak, Maša Cvetko, ProstoRož, Ljubljana15.45 Michael Obrist, feld72, Vienna16.30 Discussion, moderator: Maja Vardjan, MAO, Ljubljana

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Ethel Baraona Pohl, dpr-barcelona,

Barcelona, Spain

“It’s the economy, stupid!”

Money [or the lack of] and public space.

We’re facing new ways of thinking, trading, and acting. On this new context, the first step when moving forward should be to realize that in the end, the crisis is just a way of governing and it’s up to us to legitimate it or not. This metamorphosis of recent years in the architectural practice has resulted in new ways of production, open source platforms, DIY (Do it yourself) and DIWO (Do it with others) and new technologies to implement small-scale designs that can be catalyst for larger-scale impact, accompanied by innovative economic models that has emerged in the past years, such as local production, crowdfunding, micropayments and social money. Possibilities are endless if we realize that there are now more tools than ever before, bringing more people together from all four corners of the world.

However, these forms of influence in the public space also open the door to large uncertainties. Interestingly, the question that emerges is about how to transform this dizzying abundance of bottom-up projects to provoke real structural changes in the system we live in.

Ethel Baraona Pohl is a critic, blogger and curator [but she prefers Professional Amateur]. She is a co-founder of dpr-barcelona and editor of Quaderns. She was Associate Curator for the “Adhocracy” exhibition, first commissioned for the Istanbul Design Biennial in 2012, also exhibited at The New Museum, NYC, and at Lime Wharf, London in 2013. Currently she and César Reyes Nájera are curat-ing the third Think Space programme with the theme ‘Money’.www.dpr-barcelona.com

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© The U.S. National Archives

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Michiel van Iersel, Non-fiction, Failed

Architecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I don’t think, therefore I amsterdam

Amsterdam cherishes its reputation of being a liberal city, a save haven for artists and intellectuals. Descartes and Spinoza once lived along its famous canals. But at the start of the 21st century the city is losing its credibility as a tolerant and diverse city. The physical and legal space for free expression is slowly being colonized by city marketing executives and creative city evangelists. Cleverly combining Descartes’ famous philosophical proposition ‘I think therefore I am’ and John F. Kennedy’s cold war statement ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’, the city is now being sold to tourists under the slogan ‘I amsterdam’. Instead of allowing for multiple interpretations, this slogan practically reshapes Amsterdam into a one-dimensional tourist destination where public space is actively used for self-glorification through billboards and branded events. In his talk Michiel van Iersel will give an eyewitness account of this shift from being a city of creative production to becoming a city of cultural consumption. Talking about his own projects, he will share some successful and failed attempts to counterweigh the increasing pressure from city marketing and related developments on urban life.

Michiel van Iersel is an urbanist and co-founder of Non-fiction, an office for cultural innovation, which works in and beyond the domains of the arts, heritage and urban planning. In addition he is a co-founder of Failed Architecture, an international research project focusing on failed buildings and areas around the world. Currently he is a guest lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and at the Academy of Architecture, both in Amsterdam. non-fiction.eu, failedarchitecture.com

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Michiel van Iersel: „I amsterdam slogan practically reshapes Amsterdam

into a one-dimensional tourist destination.“

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Ana Kutleša, [BLOK], Zagreb, Croatia

„Public space is a battleground“

„Public space is a battleground“, argues Chantal Mouffe in her essay Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces, suggesting that conflict, rather than peaceful coexistence, is what makes a space public. The problem is that the dominant ideology tends to blur different conflicted positions, pacify them and make them invisible. Precisely here Mouffe sees a potential for art to “foment dissensus, [to] make visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate”. How is this potential realized in a specific curatorial and artistic practice? What does it mean to leave the gallery space in order to act in what is generally known as public space, i.e. the public urban environment? Various projects produced by [BLOK] show that without the neutrality-illusion of the white cube and its fine filtering of the audience, it is more likely that art will start to, maybe even unpurposely make visible what was previously hidden. In the process, questions concerning spatial policy inevitably arise, opening up new ways in which we can think the connection between art, urban space and public space in a wider sense.

Ana Kutleša is a member of the curatorial collective [BLOK], which operates in the interspace be-tween art, urbanism and activism, organising lectures, exhibitions, long-term research projects and publications in and about public space. Ana Kutleša co-curated 4 editions of UrbanFestival, a festival of artistic interventions in public space. Currently she is working on the 13th edition of the festival, entitled Back to the Square!www.blok.hr

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[BLOK], UrbanFestival 13, Excercising the Uninhabitable Workshop,

photo: Damir Žižić

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Axel Timm, raumlaborberlin,

Berlin, Germany

Axel Timm is a co-founder of raumlaborberlin, which is a network and a collective of 8 trained architects. They work at the intersection of architecture, city planning, art and urban intervention. They are attracted to difficult urban locations, places torn between different systems, time periods or planning ideologies, places that cannot adapt, places that are abandoned, left over or in transition that contain some relevance for the processes of urban transformations.www.raumlabor.net

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raumlaborberlin, Sudden City, Kithcen Monument, Architecture Biennial Venice, 2010

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Marko Sančanin, Platforma 9.81,

Zagreb, Croatia

Whatever Works : Public Space and

Possibility of Social Experience

Nowadays when we recall successful examples of XX century public spaces and their respective everyday urban practices, we tend to forget a simple historical fact: What we call a good public space from the mid sixties onward, was a result of cultural, political and economic contingencies that were already in its decadent stage compared to vitality and potential of modern public life at the end of XIX century.

What human civilization experienced in the past 150 years of industrial urbanity might be primarily a process that is today characterized by disappearance of the public man and drowning of political culture in narcissism of particular interests; with political state programmatically neutral and indifferent to industry of identities and abstaining from passing a judgment on the cultural choices; institutions failing to promote a new model of togetherness; representative democracy actually weakening civil participation while disenfranchized population finds common interest only in consumption of urban standards.

However, practitioners that investigate, promote, organize or design new types of public spaces are aware of the context but often operate in somewhat openly opportunistic way. They both make contemporary context transparent while trying to turn negative circumstances into advantages and platforms for common action. I will show couple of research and collective design projects that while experimenting with new types of public spaces contributed to defining contemporary social experience.

Marko Sančanin studied political science and architecture. His research, theoretical work and de-sign deal with new concepts of spatial justice, socially sustainable development and cultural her-itage. Sančanin is a columnist and radio host on architecture, urban planning and culture. From 2000 to 2013 he was the director of Platforma 9,81 – an Institute for Research in Architecture. The Institute explores the spatial implications of shifting political, economic and cultural identities in post-socialist SEE.www.platforma981.hr

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One of the phases of Akcija Stari Plac, community architectural project on revitalisation of a derelict

public space in Dubrava (Zagreb).

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Ricardo Gomes, Planning for Protest,

Berlin, Germany

Planning for Protest

Vocalizing a dissenting viewpoint in the face of untenable situations is at the core of protesting: in the past few years, there is a sense that such public disgust of local issues has networked into a global pandemic. We have seen mass protests in the streets of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, all ignited by various social ills. Planning for Protest came about as a conversation over what was happening in these flashpoints throughout the world, with a special focus on how the very spaces in which they took place helped to shape or form the success or failure of each cities’ public mobilization. In as much as the mass convention of peoples creates the voice of these protests, we wanted to see how the streets, squares and buildings, form the backdrop of these protests’ stages.

We asked 12 architectural offices to think clearly of what they saw in their streets as these protests rose and grew. From this, 12 different typologies of where, why, and how we protest formed. Their contributions show each protest as a unique moment that transpires when collective spirit fills the time-worn arteries of urban planning. Utilizing means both old and new, from changing the orientations of streets or using the internet as a vehicle for real-time intervention, their ideas exist as stratagems for future modes of protests. It would be wrong to think these will be the last. Their proposals show protests as an ongoing dialogue that not only endures but must go on.

Ricardo Gomes studied architecture in Lisbon and worked at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa and with the artist Olafur Eliasson in Berlin. He co-organized the Planning for Protest project, which through publication and an exhibition explores both the social and architectural definitions of pro-test in light of the current global financial crisis. Currently Ricardo Gomes is an assistant professor at the department of Digital and Experimental Design at the UDK in Berlin.www.planningforprotest.org

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Rianne Makkink, Studio Makkink & Bey,

Rotterdam, Netherlands

BIO 50: Affordable Living

Rianne Makkink is an architect who heads Studio Makkink & Bey, together with her partner Jurgen Bey. The ambition of Studio Makkink & Bey is to see the role of the designer expanded to the most strategic function possible. The studio works in various domains of applied art and includes public space projects, product design, architecture, exhibition design and applied arts. Currently Rianne Makkink is a mentor of the Affordable Living Group at BIO 50.www.studiomakkinkbey.nl

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Studio Makkink & Bey, Pavillions Wonderryck Natura Docet, 2013

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Marko Peterlin, IPoP, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Cities to the Pedestrians!

You know that feeling when you’ve been waiting forever for the pedestrian crossing lights to turn green, and then the red light is back on before you even make it halfway across the street? Or when you have to step off the sidewalk because there’s a car parked there, blocking your way? How about those sidewalks that just seem to disappear out of nowhere, making you walk in the car lane for a while? I bet you sometimes find yourself jaywalking because the closest crossing is simply too far away. Then, there’s the scary feeling of passing alone through a poorly lit underpass at night, or a dark, lonely suburban parking lot to get to your car. Countless cases like this exist, and we encounter them every day. These are the symptoms of a city poorly adapted to pedestrians.

All of us are pedestrians, after all, and we’re pedestrians most of the time. We spend a great deal of our lives in buildings where walking remains the preferred way of getting around, escalators or not, and in the public space going on foot is still the fundamental means of transportation that connects all the other ones. We walk to our car or bike, and especially to all means of public transport from busses to airplanes. And yet, when speaking of traffic, you’ll find hardly anyone who thinks of pedestrians first. For the benefit of everyone, maybe we should.

Marko Peterlin is an architect and urban planner with a master’s degree from Polytechnic Univer-sity of Catalonia in Barcelona. He is a co-founder of IPoP, Institute for Spatial Policies. The institute is focused on the processes that produce space and place from the bottom up, from the role of an individual, and emphasizes the importance of long-term thinking. Marko Peterlin is a mentor of the Walking the City Group at BIO 50.www.ipop.si

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IPoP, Jane’s Walk, city walking tours, Ljubljana, 2011

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Marko Fatur, LUZ, Ljubljana, Slovenia

BIO 50: Public Water, Public Space

Marko Fatur is a civil engineer and an expert on water cycle and water systems. He is working at the Urban Planning Institute of Ljubljana (LUZ) that was established 50 years ago with the purpose of drafting the general plan of the city of Ljubljana. Today LUZ has almost 100 employees and drafts numerous urban planning schemes in Slovenia and internationally. Marko Fatur is currently work-ing at BIO 50 as a mentor of the Public Water Public Space Group.www.luz.si

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#BIO50

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Alex Axinte, studioBASAR,

Bucharest, Romania

The In Between City

Bucharest is a city where in the practice of the public space an inherited state of uncertainty triggers constant adaptations, everyday solutions, temporariness and self-formulated rules, generating an in between condition of the city. Working within the public space developed in two directions: searching for the urban paradigm of the in between city and rescuing the potential which arose from this condition.

StudioBASAR started to work with the public space in a form of documentation and adaptation to the context and has gradually turned it into a design based research. StudioBASAR is focusing on several case studies of the types of operation that they are using, such as intervening in the public space through quick ad-hoc actions, or on the contrary by slowly infiltrating it with public equipments.

Alex Axinte is an architect who worked in architectural studios in Bucharest and Rotterdam be-fore co-founding studioBASAR with Cristi Borcan. StudioBASAR is an architectural studio and a Search-and-Rescue team that acts as an agent of urban observation and intervention. The projects of studioBASAR range from public space interventions, art installations and urban research to com-petitions and different typologies of residential and public buildings.www.studiobasar.ro

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studioBASAR, Public Bath, Bucharest, 2012

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Alenka Korenjak, ProstoRož,

Ljubljana, Slovenia

What can I do for the city?

Why and how do we deal with urban public space? How do we explore public space? What does the public space mean to local residents and community?

In the projects, carried out in Ljubljana in the ten years of dealing with this topics, ProstoRož witnessed a big change in perception of public spaces in the minds of Ljubljana’s residents and even more so in the minds of city officials. With the process of privatization the state lost its role of managing public spaces, and with the financial crisis so did the capital city. Who’s turn is it now to take responsibility of managing public spaces?

The roles that ProstoRož played as a non-governmental organization while taking the initiative for actions and advocacy of public spaces were different, from planning the public space to connecting residents with city officials. Every project they undergo raises new questions and findings, each location demands a different approach and that is why ProstoRož adds a more specific question to the one in the title of the conference ‘What is happening?’, and that is: ‘What can I as an individual and an expert do for the city?’

Alenka Korenjak is one of the co-founders of ProstoRož, which was founded spontaneously with a desire to explore and understand the open city space. ProstoRož combines architects, sociologists, jurists, designers and many others who work to examine and open up new possibilities of public space use. They try to raise awareness of the meaning of public spaces and of building strong local communities that are capable of active involvement in managing their own environment. www.prostoroz.org

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ProstoRož, Optimists, U3 Triennial of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2013

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Michael Obrist, feld72, Vienna, Avstrija

Space, Strategies and Tactics

The work of feld72 explores the intersection between architecture, applied urbanism and art. From the very beginning the collective has examined the issues surrounding the use and perception of public space throughout a series called „urban strategies“. These 1:1 projects that form the basis for a „theory through praxis“ have been implanted in different types and situations of public space throughout the world. The main focus is on the examination of space as a social form and the search for new strategies, tactics and tools to enrich our given spaces in social terms. As the architectural theorists Kari Jormakka stated: „The architects of feld72 do not approach architecture in terms of established categories of function, form or kind, but rather ask what the city is capable of...There is no break between the theoretical and experimental projects of feld72 and their designs for buildings: all of their work, irrespective of scale or means, investigates how the world is engaged and perceived through the lens of architecture. And there is an architectural lesson we can draw from this work, namely that the essence of architecture is nothing architectural.“

feld72 is a collective exploring the intersection between architecture, applied urbanism and art. The office realized numerous buildings, urban interventions in public space, masterplans and researches in an international context. The work of feld72 has been exhibited in Biennales in Venezia, Shenz-hen / Hongkong, Canaries, Art Triennial of Guangzhou, Sao Paulo and Rotterdam. Besides having won numerous awards, feld72 was selected by the jury of the latest Iakhov-Chernikhov-Award as one of the 10 most innovative young practices worldwide.www.feld72.at

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feld72, PublicTrailer

Edited by

Matevž Čelik

Project coordinator

Nikola Pongrac

Public relations

Pika Domenis

Design

Mina Žabnikar, Ee

Published by

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Pot na Fužine 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija

T + 386 (0)1 548 42 74/70,

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www.mao.si, www.bio.si

© MAO, Ljubljana 2013

publicspaceEUROPE CITY

WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE CULTURE PROGRAMME OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Published on the occasion of the international

conference »What’s going on? The new

Dynamics of Public Space« in The Museum

of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana.

The conference is a part of international

cooperation project »Europe City«, with the

support of The Culture Programme of The

European Union.

Speakers

Ethel Baraona Pohl, dpr-barcelona, Barcelona;

Michiel van Iersel, Non-fiction, Failed

Architecture, Amsterdam; Ana Kutleša,

[BLOK], Zagreb; Alex Axinte, studioBASAR,

Bucharest; Alenka Korenjak, ProstoRož,

Ljubljana; Axel Timm, raumlaborberlin,

Berlin; Marko Sančanin, Platforma 9.81,

Zagreb; Rianne Makkink, Studio Makkink &

Bey, Rotterdam; Ricardo Gomes, Planning for

Protest, Berlin; Marko Peterlin, IPoP, Ljubljana;

Marko Fatur, LUZ, Ljubljana; Michael Obrist,

feld72, Vienna

Moderators

Jan Boelen, Z33, Hasselt; Anja Planišček,

Faculty of Architecture, Ljubljana; Matjaž

Uršič, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ljubljana;

Mika Cimolini, Elastik, Ljubljana; Maja

Vardjan, MAO, Ljubljana

Curator

Matevž Čelik

Coverphoto

©raumlaborberlin

www.mao.si

www.bio.si

Pot na Fužine 2

1000 Ljubljana

Slovenia, Europe