derive – Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung (german)

http://www.derive.at

dérive – Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung erscheint seit Sommer 2000 vierteljährlich in Wien und versteht sich als interdisziplinäre Plattform zum Thema Stadtforschung. Die behandelten Felder reichen von Architektur, Stadt- und Landschaftsplanung, Raumordnung und Bildender Kunst bis zu Geographie, Soziologie, Politik- und Medienwissenschaften und Philosophie. Thematisiert werden globale Problemstellungen, die im lokalen Rahmen behandelt werden und Aufschlüsse über die gegenwärtige Stadtentwicklung geben sollen.

Blogcloud Urbanistikae

http://www.urbanistika.ee/

URBANISTIKA.EE is a cloud of blogs that debate different areas dealing with urban issues. Its aim is to become an open discussion agora for all who are interested in cities and their future, while dealing with subjects such as urban planning, architecture, activism, urban studies, writings about cities, neighbourhood analyses and specific cities, as well as events that happen regarding these themes.

We are based in Tallinn, Estonia, acting as a local internet-based forum for action, research and dialogue within the city of Tallinn, joining all sectors possible. Beyond locality, we try to enrich the experience of cities around the globe and open the windows to the outside world. Our goal is to provoke discussion and work towards more intelligent planning and better urban life. As support, urbanistika.ee provides a publication channel for articles, projects and thesis works.

Some of the main concerns of this website are:

  • Debate
  • Consultation
  • Exchange
  • Contact platform
  • Constant communication

The core group behind the project consists of students, alumnae and teachers of the Urban Studies MA in the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Documentary – Der Gruen Effekt (German)

Als aus Einkaufen Shoppen wurde, eine Doku über Victor Gruen, den Wiener Erfinder der Shopping Mall. Heute zu sehen auf ORF 2.

Der Gruen Effekt
Die Regisseurinnen Anette Baldauf und Katharina Weingartner auf den Spuren des Wiener Architekten Victor Gruen, dem Vater der Shopping Mall.

Anette Baldauf ist heute zu Gast in Connected.

Shoppen ist die Lieblingsfreizeitbeschäftigung der meisten BewohnerInnen der nördlichen Hemisphäre. Konsum diktiert die Reglen, nach denen unsere Städte strukturiert werden. Öffentlicher Raum verschwindet oder verwahrlost und an seine Stelle treten Einkaufszentren in denen wir im Laufrad unsere Runden drehen sollen.

“Ich weigere mich, Alimente für diese Bastardprojekte zu bezahlen!” dieses Zitat von Victor Gruen über sein ungeliebtes Stiefkind die Shopping Mall hören wir gleich zu Beginn der Doku. Victor Gruen Architekt, Theaterliebhaber, Schauspieler, Kabaretist bekenndender Sozialdemokrat hatte gänzlich andere Absichten als er 1952 an dem ersten Shopping Town in Detroit zu bauen began. Eine Shopping Town sollte nämlich sämtliche Funktionen eines innerstädtischen Zentrums übernehmen und nicht bloß ein Konsumtempel sein.

In guter Erreichbarkeit der nach dem Krieg rasant wachsenden Vorstädte wollte Gruen den Menschen einen autofreien, wettergeschützten Ort bieten. Ein Zentrum, in dem die Menschen in den USA all das tun könnten, was das öffentliche Leben in historisch gewachsenen Altstädten ausmacht. Gruen versuchte das lebendige Stadtzentrum Wiens, das er aus seiner Jugend, vor der Machtübernahme der Nazis kannte, in die USA zu importieren. Gruens Shopping Towns waren Orte mit Bibliotheken, Kindergärten und Grünflächen die zum Verweilen einluden. Der Archtiekt verzweifelte, als er Zeuge wurde, wie die Shopping Towns zu Shopping Malls wurden. Sämtliche gemeinnützigen Flächen wurden eliminiert um den maximalen Ertrag pro Quadratmeter zu erwirtschaften. Zusätzlich verwahrlosten die Innenstädte mit Zutun von Immobilienspekulaten zunehmend und die weiße Mittelklasse flüchtete in die segregierten Vorstädte und eben die Einkaufszentren. Victor Gruen kehrte in den 70er Jahren nach Wien zurück, wo die Behörden einen der wichtigsten Archtiekten des Jahrhunderts mit Arbeitsverbot belegten, da der jüdische Flüchtling 1938 sein Studium nicht regulär abgeschlossen hatte.

Der Gruen Effekt, von den Regisseurinnen Anette Baldauf und Katharina Weingartner.

International Network for Urban Research and Action

www.inura.org

The International Network for Urban Research and Action

INURA is a network of people involved in action and research in localities and cities. The Network consists of activists and researchers from community and environmental groups, universities, and local administrations, who wish to share experiences and to participate in common research. Examples of the issues that Network members are involved in include: major urban renewal projects, the urban periphery, community-led environmental schemes, urban traffic and transport, inner city labour markets, do-it-yourself culture, and social housing provision. In each case, the research is closely tied to, and is a product of, local action and initiative.

INURA is a non-governmental and non-profit organization with a self-organizing, non-hierarchical, decentralized structure. Regional Offices take turns annually in organizing the conference and publishing the INURA Bulletin.

Aims

The basic purpose of the Network is to develop and promote the interaction of social and environmental urban movements with research and theoretical anlysis. INURA brings together theorists and practitioners sharing a common, critical attitude towards contemporary urban development. The Network wishes to maintain an informal and commmitted approach to its work.

INURA Principles

  1. INURA is a network of people involved in action and research in localities and cities. We are committed to sharing our experiences and information in order to further the understanding of the problems affecting our areas.
  2. We are committed to the empowerment of people in their neighbourhoods, communities, cities and region.
  3. In our work we recognize the importance of ethnic and cultural diversity, and the need to oppose racism, class and gender discrimination.
  4. Changes in forms of work and of community and domestic life must be understood and planned in relation to each other.
  5. We must resist and reverse the process of polarization of income and quality of environment, both in the social fragmentation of our cities and the divergence of core and periphery regions.
  6. Our network particularly wants to broaden its links with housing, employment and environmental campaigns.
  7. We aim to further the process of environmentally sustainable urban development.
  8. We seek to resist centralization and the damaging effects of globalization.
  9. We are working to create strong and diverse visions of the future urban life.
  10. INURA will work with a variety of methods of research, communication, interaction and dissemination of information, including scholarly work, media productions, activist documents, debates and stories of urban experience. INURA invites future contributions from academics, the arts, political activists and social movements.

Salecina/Switzerland 1991

European Architectural History Network

www.eahn.org

EAHN MISSION STATEMENT

The European Architectural History Network supports research and education by providing a public forum for the dissemination of knowledge about the histories of architecture. Based in Europe, it serves architectural historians and scholars in allied fields without restriction on their areas of study. The network seeks to overcome limitations imposed by national boundaries and institutional conventions through pursuit of the following aims:

  • increasing the visibility of the discipline among scholars and the public.
  • promoting scholarly excellence and innovation.
  • fostering inclusive, transnational, interdisciplinary, and multicultural approaches to the history of the built environment
  • encouraging communication among the disciplines that study space.
  • facilitating the open exchange of research results.
  • providing a clearinghouse for information related to the discipline.

Portrait of the City. Framing the significance of historic urban landscapes

www.portrait-of-the-city.com

International Conference, Dublin Castle, 9th-10th-11th December 2010

The School of Architecture, Landscape and Civil Engineering, University College Dublin, in collaboration with the Office of Public Works will host a multi-disciplinary international conference to explore the significance of cities, their constructed heritage, and the manner in which both the city and its heritage are framed for the public, the nation and the tourist.

In order to elucidate these topics, we have invited international scholars from different fields as keynote speakers. The invitation is now open to scholars and students to submit abstracts for the open sessions.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

  • M.Christine Boyer
  • Stephen Daniels
  • Jukka Jokilehto
  • Jacinta Prunty
  • Dell Upton

Organising Committee

  • Dr.Finola O’Kane Crimmins
  • Dr.Gillian O’Brien
  • Dr.Agustina Martire

Konferenz “This Town Is Gonna Blow…” European Protest Movements and Society in the 1980s

http://thistownisgonnablow.jimdo.com

May 6-8, 2010: Thirty years after the Bremen “Bundeswehrkrawalle” European protest movements of the 1980s will be the subject of an international academic conference

On May 6th 1980, a group of new recruits was publicly sworn in with the German Bundeswehr in the Bremen soccer stadium. As a reaction, street battles of hitherto unknown dimensions between left-wing activists and (military) police took place in the area near the stadium. Viewed in the following years as the beginning of the German autonomous movement, this inner city riot marked at the same time a European phenomenon.

A week earlier the coronation day of the Dutch Queen Beatrix had seen the squatting of several houses and the building of barricades in the city of Amsterdam; at the end of May the so-called Opernhauskrawalle shook the city of Zurich; race riots worried the British public shortly thereafter.

The Bremen Bundeswehrkrawalle seem to have been part of a newly forming protest movement which was characterized by militancy and an attitude of non-cooperation, a concern for urban spatial politics, and its interpretation as a youth phenomenon.

In the states of the Warsaw Pact important protest movements existed as well – from Polish Solidarnosc to the East German peace movement – while the political conditions differed significantly. And while Western consumer goods became the object of desire of many critics of the “actually existing socialism”, a growing “alternative” milieu in the West formulated a fundamental critique of consumption.

Thirty years after the Bremen Bundeswehrkrawalle an international academic conference will explore these new protest movements. It will explore questions of identity and consumption, of the significance of the media, transnationalism and urban space for these newly formed protest movements. It further aims to situate these movements in their overall context of beginning neoliberalism, conservative turn, and the so called “Second Cold War”.

The conference takes place at the Gästehaus der Universität Bremen, Auf dem Teerhof 58. All presentations will be held in English.

A public panel discussion on the Bundeswehrkrawalle (in German) will take place on May 7, 2010, 7:30 p.m. at the Kulturzentrum Schlachthof. It will be followed by a screening of the film “Züri brännt” (CH 1980).

Summer school “History Takes Place – Urban Change in Europe”, Paris

www.history-takes-place.de

Since 2003 the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius has invited up to twenty young historians and social scientists (usually postgraduate students) annually to take part in studies programmes in various locations. The aim is to find the traces of history in the topography, architecture and monuments of the place. The city itself is ‘read’ as a historical source – ‘History Takes Place’.

From 6 to 18 September 2010 the summer school ‘History Takes Place – Urban Change in Europe’ will be held in Paris. Taking the French capital as an example, the aim of this year’s meeting is to create an international network of the historical, cultural and social sciences as well as architecture and city planning, in order to examine current developments in urban environments in Europe. Professor Dr. Thomas Kirchner (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) will serve as the academic director.

EUROCITIES

www.eurocities.eu

EUROCITIES is the network of major European cities. We bring together the local governments of more than 140 large cities in over 30 European countries.

We influence and work with the EU institutions to respond to common issues that impact the day-to-day lives of Europeans.  Our aim is to shape the opinions of stakeholders in Brussels to ultimately shift legislation in a way that helps city governments address the EU’s strategic challenges at the local level.  A large part of our work is aimed at reinforcing the role and place that local government should have in a multi-level governance structure.

Based on the EU’s three key challenges, EUROCITIES’ policy priorities are:

Feeding into these, our network’s activities address a wide range of policies concerning economic development and cohesion policy, the provision of public services, climate change, energy and environment, transport and mobility, employment and social affairs, culture, education, information and knowledge society, as well as governance and international cooperation.

EUROCITIES provides a platform for its member cities to share knowledge and ideas, to exchange experiences, to analyse common problems and develop innovative solutions, through a wide range of forums, working groups, projects, activities and events.

We are committed to working towards a common vision of a sustainable future in which all citizens can enjoy a good quality of life.

metroZones Center for Urban Affairs Zentrum für städtische Angelegenheiten Centro para asuntos urbanos

http://www.metrozones.info

metroZones e.V. Zentrum für städtische Angelegenheiten

hat sich 2007 als unabhängiger Verein gegründet, um an der Schnittstelle von Kunst, Wissenschaft und Politik verschiedene Ansätze der Forschung, Wissensproduktion, Kulturpraxen und politischen Interventionen zu kombinieren und öffentlich zu thematisieren. Dabei setzen wir auf internationale, interdisziplinäre und institutionelle Kooperationen. Die Expertise von metroZones speist sich aus der langjährigen, disziplinär und regional verzweigten Arbeitserfahrung seiner Mitglieder in Forschung, Kultur, Medien und städtischer Politik: Jochen Becker (Kurator und Kritiker, u.a. Lagos/Teheran), Britta Grell (Politologin, Los Angeles/ Chicago/New York), Anne Huffschmid (Kulturwissenschaftlerin und Autorin, u.a. Mexiko-Stadt/ Buenos Aires), Stephan Lanz (Stadtforscher und Kurator, u.a. Rio de Janeiro/Istanbul/Berlin), Oliver Pohlisch (Kulturwissenschaftler und Journalist, u.a. London), Katja Reichard (Künstlerin und Mitbetreiberin des Buchladens Pro qm, Berlin), Erwin Riedmann (Soziologe, Berlin), Kathrin Wildner (Stadtethnologin und Kuratorin, u.a. Mexiko-Stadt/Istanbul)

metroZones – Center for Urban Affairs

was founded as an independent association in 2007 to bring together and discuss publicly different approaches to research, knowledge production, cultural practices and political intervention at the interface of art, scholarship and politics. We count on international, interdisciplinary and institutional cooperation. metroZones’ expertise feeds on the longstanding, disciplinarily and regionally widely-branched work experience of their members in research, culture and arts, the media and urban politics. Jochen Becker (curator and critic, Lagos/Teheran among others), Britta Grell (political scientist, Los Angeles/Chicago/New York), Anne Huffschmid (cultural scientist and author, Mexico City/Buenos Aires among others), Stephan Lanz (urbanist and curator, Rio de Janeiro/Istanbul/Berlin among others), Oliver Pohlisch (cultural scientist and journalist, London among others), Katja Reichard (artist and owner of the bookstore Pro qm, Berlin), Erwin Riedmann (social scientist, Berlin), Kathrin Wildner (urban ethnographer and curator, Mexiko-City/Istanbul among others)