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.

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.

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 / Passcode: 161123

https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/61167307309?pwd=TEZyWlpLZDYwaDNJY0ZDZUhsaENhdz09

Thursday 16.11.2023

• 14.00 - 14.10 Institutional welcome (Jonathan Sergison)
• 14.10 - 14.20 Introduction to the symposium (Tom Avermaete and Giulia Scotto)

15.20 – 17.40 Session I: Drawing urban conditions and processes

• 15.20 - 15.30 Session introduction (Jonathan Sergison and Miriam Stierle)
• 15.30 - 15.50 Hugh Campbell and Plattenbaustudio / Drawing Dublin Port and all that it Currently Contains
• 15.50 - 16.10 Fatima Zahra Benhamza / HETEROTOPIA[S]_Casablanca layers of love
• 16.10 - 16.30 Patrick Cheng-Chun Hwang / The Thick and Thin of Fragrant Harbor
• 16.30 - 16.50 Elsa Despoix / The Logbook Project. A Window into Hand Drawing by Next Generation Architects
• 16.50 - 17.10 Dennis Häusler and Mathias Vollmer / Drawing the Urban – Complexity and Specificity
  17.10 - 17.40 Discussion (moderated by Jonathan Sergison and Miriam Stierle)
• 18.00 - 19.00 Keynote by Julian Lewis (East architecture, landscape urban design ltd.)

Friday 16.11.2023

09.00 – 11.20 Session II: Drawing histories

• 09.00 - 09.10 Session introduction (Tom Avermaete and Sanna Kattenbeck)
• 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)
• 11.40 – 12.40 Keynote by Kristiaan Borret (Bouwmeester-Maitre Architecte of the Brussels-Capital Region)
• 13.40 – 14.40 Keynote by Huda Tayob (Manchester School of Architecture)

15.00 – 17:00 Session III: Drawing marginal spaces and alternative agencies

• 15.00 - 15.10 Session introduction (Irina Davidovici and Giulia Scotto)
• 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 and Tom Avermaete)