Cool Media Hot Talk Show on City Life
new series in the frame of the Happening project at the Netherlands
Architecture Institute, Rotterdam
http://www.coolmediahottalk.net/nai.jsp
#1: Urban Rescue: Creativity and Beyond
Sunday March 2, 2008 - 16.00 - 18.00 CET
LIVE VIDEO STREAMING and interface for online participation:
http://www.coolmediahottalk.net/livepage.jsp
THEME:
Urban regeneration is a high point of our cities politics. How to
transform marginal neighbourhoods into safe and attractive places
where to live? How to achieve social cohesion? And which are the
tools to be used to transform our cities? These are the questions
that policy makers and social activists are facing daily. Beyond
making new streets, new buildings, new facilities, our cities are
also transformed by policies that attract new inhabitants, that
create diversity or homogeneity, that are shifting the perception of
entire parts of our urban environment. The first Cool Media Hot Talk
Show, as part of the Happening project at the Netherlands
Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, will investigate these topics.
The fil rouge of the three debates will be "city-life", as a
manifestation of moods, uses and passions that people rely on the
city. Beyond the simple perception of the buildings and structures,
our cities are mostly moulded by different uses, interpretations and
cultures of their inhabitants. Cool Media Hot Talk Show will reveal
possible ways of imagining and modifying our urban realm, starting
with understanding potential and problems on the issue of the
"creative city".
SPEAKERS:
Olof van de Wal - director of KEI expert centre for urban
regeneration http://www.kei-centrum.nl.
STATEMENT:
Urban regeneration is not about architecture and is certainly not
about architects. If anything, it is geared towards creating vitality
in urban neighbourhoods, creating the possibility of what has been
called 'social ascent' for those living in these neighbourhoods. In
this, the spatial context can provide the necessary means - and it
often does. But economy - jobs, income levels - and education are but
two of the decisive factors in regeneration, in the city as the so
called emancipation machine. Architecture certainly is important, as
a catalyst for quality, but architects themselves more often than not
are left out (or have moved out) of the debate on urban regeneration,
and at best play a supporting role.
Matthias Pauwels / BAVO - an independent research office focused on
the political dimension of art, architecture and planning. BAVO is a
co-operation between Gideon Boie and Matthias Pauwels. http://
www.bavo.biz
STATEMENT:
Creative Urban Regeneration: Nothing More Than a Substitute for Urban
Politics?
Architects should take a more politically firm stance towards the
creative regeneration schemes and pacts that are being launched today
in the economically less successful parts of Dutch cities (the so-
called problem neighbourhoods). Due to increased competition on a
metropolitan, national and international scale, cities in the
Netherlands are eager to tap the unrealized potential of these
neighbourhoods. All too often creative initiatives of architects are
being used as a substitute or surrogate for any real political
commitment with these problem neighbourhoods. They have to create a
good vibe around the neighbourhood, restore the pride of the
inhabitants, give them the impression that they can really make a
difference and that they can take advantage of limitless
opportunities. Needless to say, all of this is mere foreplay, a
necessary game of seduction that has to convince the big market
players to start to redevelop these neighbourhoods as well as seduce
middle-class consumers to buy into these new, exciting property
markets. The challenge for architects is to develop ways to empower
these disadvantaged urban areas without participating - directly or
indirectly - in their colonization for dubious political and economic
purposes. Only then can they become the driving forces of a new,
genuinely emancipatory urban political movement.
ORGANISERS:
The Cool Media Hot Talk Shows on City Life are organised by the Cool
Mediators Foundation, The Netherlands Architecture Institute
Rotterdam, and De Balie, Amsterdam.
Live streaming in collaboration with V2_ Rotterdam
Cool Media Hot Talk Show creates an open public platform that
supports truly interactive forms of direct public engagement in the
very creation of critical public discourse.
More info: http://www.coolmediahottalk.net/
About Happening:
For two months the NAI will organise happenings in and around an
installation that the architect Wiel Arets has specially designed for
the NAI: concerts, theatre performances, interactive video
projections, debates, dinners and performances. In this architectural
construction, compositions of light, sound and video projection
enable you to experience the influence that buildings, squares and
streets have on your emotions and on how you perceive. The happenings
make you aware of the role that you yourself play in experiencing and
imagining the city, as well as of the difference that you as a
citizen can make.
Dates: 01 march 2008 - 04 may 2008
The full programme can be found at:
http://happening.nai.nl
Netherlands Architecture Institute Rotterdam
Museumpark 25
Rottedam
www.nai.nl
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