New Urban Strategies and Architectural Activism in Public Space

March 10, 2011 – 5:00 PM – Faculty of Architecture CTU Prague, Thákurova 9

March 11, 2011 – 11:30 AM – Faculty of Architecture VUT Brno, Poříčí 5

March 11, 2011 – 5:00 PM – Faculty of Architecture STU Bratislava, Nám. slobody 19

Raumlaborkorea: Opening of openHouse, in which more than two hundred people from the local area participated; Anyang, South Korea; photo: APAP2010.

The architectural magazine ERA 21, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, cordially invites you to a discussion meeting on the topic "New Urban Strategies and Architectural Activism in Public Space" on Thursday, March 10 at 5:00 PM at the Faculty of Architecture CTU Prague, Thákurova 9, on Friday, March 11 at 11:30 AM at the Faculty of Architecture VUT Brno, Poříčí 5, and on the same day at 5:00 PM at the Faculty of Architecture STU Bratislava, Námestie slobody 19.
The main speakers and discussants will be Matthias Rick (raumlaborberlin) with the contribution "Instant Architecture – Stories, Buildings, and Experiments" and Klaus Overmeyer (Urban Catalyst): "Catalyzing Urban Transformation". In Prague, Jan Tilinger (Surya, o. s.) will join them to share his experiences from the non-profit sector with the topic "Solar Schools in the Indian Himalayas, Kargyak 4,200 m above sea level"; in Brno, Kateřina Šedá will present her social happenings under the title "Mirror Mountain"; and in Bratislava, local activist Matúš Vallo (VSA) will present the latest insights from his research stay in New York on the topic "Volunteering in Public Space".

The term "new urban strategies" hides tools that could help us better understand and work with contemporary cities. It is an area of architecture that is still very little reflected upon in our context. In the issue of the magazine, which will be freely available to event participants, you can also look forward to an exclusive interview with the now eighty-five-year-old Frei Otto, an exploration of the contributions of the IBA exhibitions to urban planning thinking by one of its founders, Erhart Pfotenhauer, and you will learn about "urban catalysts", urban "zero points", what "walkology" is about and why the best plans are those of which citizens are not only familiar with but also can identify with, get excited about, and in the best case, participate in their direct realization! Austrian sociologist Peter Arlt asks whether we should approach cities more from the perspective of immediate situational solutions and specific places and people, rather than from the perspective of long-term general strategy. The realizations cover an area from Germany through London and South Korea to Burkina Faso. The curator of the ERA21 issue, Matthias Rick from raumlaborberlin, will personally attend all three discussions.

Presentations will be conducted in English, Czech, and Slovak, and the following discussion, moderated by the editor-in-chief of the magazine ERA21, Osamu Okamura, will take place in English.

For more detailed information, please visit www.era21.cz/facebook.

The event is held in cooperation with O architektuře víc! o.s., the Goethe-Institutes in Prague and Bratislava, the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague, the Faculty of Architecture VUT in Brno, the Faculty of Architecture STU in Bratislava, and with the kind support of the Czech-German Future Fund.