Symposium: Drawing the Urban
In the last decades, the notion of the city as a definable entity has been increasingly contested and reframed in relation to fluid and heterogenous urbanization processes. If the term still retains a collective intelligibility, this is because the urban imaginary is deeply rooted in individual lived experiences.
16th –17th November, 2023
ISUP (Istituto Studi Urbani e del Paesaggio)
USI, Accademia di architettura, Mendrisio, Switzerland
A key role in defining and reiterating urban imaginaries can be understood in relation to the way the city is depicted. The representation of the urban is not merely a descriptive operation, but one that deals with the epistemological challenges of how to know, understand, and study urban processes and conditions. At the same time, drawings are the instruments that allow urbanists, architects, and designers to envision and steer spatial and social transformations.
This symposium will investigate the multiple ways in which recent and current urban conditions are represented, analysed, and informed, through drawings. Among the multiplicity of urban processes constantly and simultaneously shaping the built environment, we are particularly interested in dynamics of urban expansion and densification (whether top-down and bottom-up), as well as shrinkage, exclusion, land speculation, and gentrification. We are similarly interested in the material and graphical analyses of social phenomena such as migration, demographic shifting, and intensive commuting.
We welcome contributions that investigate existing forms of urban representation – for example, institutional and administrative documentation, urban codes, maps, and construction drawings – as well as creative, subjective, situated, and propositional ways of visually depicting urban processes and conditions.
Zoom Webinar
The event will be in-person, but it will be possible to follow it online via zoom at this link
external page https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/61167307309?pwd=TEZyWlpLZDYwaDNJY0ZDZUhsaENhdz09
Passcode: 161123
Programme
Thursday 16 November 2023
Afternoon
14.00 - 14.10 Institutional welcome, Jonathan Sergison
14.10 - 14.20 Introduction to the symposium, Tom Avermaete and Giulia Scotto
14.20 – 16.40 Session I: Drawing urban conditions and processes.
14.20 - 14.30 Introduction, Jonathan Sergison
14.30 - 14.50 Hugh Campbell and Plattenbaustudio, Drawing Dublin Port and all that it Currently Contains
14.50 - 15.10 Fatima Zahra Benhamza
Heterotopia[s]_Casablanca layers of love
15.10 - 15.30 Cheng-Chun Patrick HWANG and Peter W. Ferretto
The Thick and Thin of Fragrant Harbor
15.30 - 15.50 Elsa Despoix
The Logbook Project, A Window into Hand Drawing by Next Generation Architects
15.50 - 16.10 Dennis Häusler and Mathias Vollmer
Drawing the Urban – Complexity and Specificity
16.10 - 16.40 Discussion, moderated by Jonathan Sergison and Miriam Stierle
16.40 - 17.00 Coffee break
17.00 - 18.00 Keynote by Julian Lewis, East architecture, landscape urban design ltd. Reality Sandwiches
Friday 17 November 2023
Morning
09.00 – 11.20 Session II: Drawing histories
09.00 - 09.10 Introduction, Tom Avermaete
09.10 - 09.30 Lorenzo De Chiffre, Reading Buildings as Metaspace – Reverse Engineering the Urban Theory of Chora Institute of Architecture and Urbanism.
09.30 - 09.50 Yosuke Nakamoto, From fisher villages to the city: Design surveys by the Kōjiro Laboratory 1967-1976
09.50 - 10.10 Amir Djalali, Making Everything Visible: the Archaeological Plan and the Open Secret of Urban Form
10.10 - 10.30 Ilaria Maria Zedda, The IBA Berlin 1979–87 and its Rahmenpläne: Drawing the Urban as a Design Tool and a Trigger for Discussions on the City
10.30 - 10.50 Lola Lozano Lara, Withdrawing Land. Graphic agency and land entitlement in colonial Mexico
10.50 - 11.20 Discussion moderated by Tom Avermaete and Sanna Kattenbeck
11.20 -11.40 Coffee break
11.40 – 12.40 Keynote by Kristiaan Borret, Bouwmeester-Maitre Architecte of the Brussels-Capital Region Soft Power. The impact of a drawing in urban policy
12.40 - 13.40 Lunch break
Friday 17 November 2023
Afternoon
13.40 – 14.40 Keynote by Huda Tayob, Manchester School of Architecture
Opaque architectures: can drawing ‘tell’ a different story?
14.40 – 15.00 Coffee break (by osteria Vignetta)
15.00 – 17:00 Session III: Drawing marginal spaces and alternative agencies
15.00 – 15.10 Introduction, Irina Davidovici
15.10 - 15.30 Xiang Ren
Drawing Urban Imaginaries of Minorities and Margins
15.30 - 15.50 Geraldine Borio
Looking for the Voids and Drawing the Liminal
15.50 - 16.10 Elettra Carnelli
What the files do not reveal: self-constructed settlements and their drawings in postwar Milan’s periphery
16.10 - 16.30 Lukas Fink, Seppe De Blust, Marica Castigliano, and Chloé Nachtergael
A Map of Potentials
16.30 -17.00 Discussion moderated by Irina Davidovici and Giulia Scotto
17.00-17.30 Conclusion, Jonathan Sergison, Tom Avermaete, and Irina Davidovici