Panel Title

Description

Panel Convenor(s)

Panel Speakers

1

Interconnectedness and the availability of information has allowed the average citizen to be much better informed.  We may, sometimes be asked, often encouraged to, conduct our own affairs, which previously required professionals.  Everything from filing taxes without any knowledge of the super complex tax code;  making decisions about our health, with no knowledge of medicine; and even designing and constructing buildings, with no professional, architectural or design expertise.  The array of information that is available at our fingertips on how to change the oil in our own cars, fix the faucet, all the way to Kantian philosophy is staggering.  On the one hand, the availability of information and our interconnectedness has allowed us to be better informed about ourselves and our world.  On the other hand, it has led towards a trend of de-professionalizition.  Affairs that were previously conducted by professionals of high caliber, with expertise in their disciplines, are now being conducted by the average citizen, with little expertise and professional standards.   In this session, we will examine possible new spaces on the borders of this new de-professionalized environment that have opened for creative practice.   

Prof. Dr. Mehrdad Hadighi

2

CAUMME FILM PANEL: Theme: Contemporary City/Contemporary Architecture

Scope

Due to the unavoidable link between cinema and the contemporary city, and its architecture, a short film panel is proposed for the Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in the Mediterranean and the Middle East International Symposium, CAUMME II, which will be held in October 2014 in Girne. The symposium deals with Architectural and Urban Research, Education, and Practice in the Era of ‘Post-Professionalism’ within this context: “‘Post-professional’ architecture and urbanity have emerged in recent decades as a by-product of the globalized world with neo-liberal states, multi-national corporations, and worldwide social and environmental predicaments. The structure of the state is being transformed and consequently the associated paradigm of ‘professionalism’ that prevailed throughout the period of the modern (nation) state, much of the twentieth century, is no longer persuasive. A significant feature of these changes in relation to contemporary architectural and urban research, education and practice is that as they are transitioning into the ‘post-professional’ era they are losing their public/ national/ social roles. As public-oriented correlations between education, research and practice have subsided, so the education, research and practice of architecture and urbanity have been restructured via business-led/market-led motivations.” More information is available on: http://caumme.gau.edu.tr.

Within this context, the CAUMME film panel aims to bring together the ‘media’ of short film and the city. The theme for the film panel is contemporary city/contemporary architecture. Diverse viewpoints, which explore, protest or promote cities and urban architecture in the 21st century, are expected to be part of this panel. Film is a means of representation not only of the build environment but also ‘lived spaces’. Accordingly, urban living and the relationship between people and architecture can be considered as part of the proposals. Also, different cities have different identities. It is also possible to say that a city can reveal diverse identities as to the background of the ‘observer’, and his/her relationship with the city. The panel hopes to open up a discussion on these diverse identities, and our relationship with cities. Selected films will be screened in the CAUMME II International Symposium. Up to 7 films will be chosen. Selection criteria are cinematic proficiency, appropriate reference to the theme of the panel/symposium, and technical proficiency.

Terms and Conditions

1. Films can be in any genre, made in any format or date, but films made after 2000 are preferable.

2. Films may have been screened in a theatre, festival or conference before; they may have won awards.

3. Films not longer than 20 minutes can apply for the symposium film panel.

4. English subtitles are compulsory if the original language of the film is not English.

5. Music and other copyrights are the responsibility of the director.

6. Film needs to be provided in one of these formats: avi, mov, mp4.

7. Directors can apply with more than one film to the symposium film panel.

8. The deadline for application is 1 August 2014. It is the responsibility of the director to provide a copy of the film to the symposium on time.

9. The email should include a dropbox link to access the film and the one-page application form filled out in Word and PDF formats. Please also add a photograph of the director and a film still (both in jpeg format with 300dpi resolution).

10. Queries about the application process can be forwarded to: g.kacmaz@qub.ac.uk.

11. Selected films (up to 7) will be screened in the symposium.

12. CAUMME has the right not to screen films that are technically corrupt or deficient.

Dr. Gul Kacmaz Erk

3

The “Other Modernity” for a Different Contemporary Architectural Practice.

When we always talk about architectural identity means that this is in danger of extinction . If we organize every fortnight a conference on sustainability in architecture means that sustainability and architecture in the contemporary world have taken two different and opposite paths.

To understand what is the influence of the global world on contemporary architecture in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East we must  critically re-examine  the events of the last century , dominated by modernism in architecture. The Modern Movement is represented in the books of History of Architecture as a monolithic and consistent phenomenon. It was actually magmatic and multicultural .

Making a clear break with the history the Modern Movement released those cultural forces connected to the financial world , which has always operated according to principles of pure economic profitability .

If we look at the building materials - from a purely didactic point of view  - we can divide the world of architecture in two hemispheres : timber-elastic  and masonry-plastic. The first was linked to the landscape of forests and customary use of a lightweight and slender material such as wood (no matter if in middle age this gothic world has been converted to the use of the stone) . It produces airy structures of thin pillars and large windows. The second was tied to the landscape of the bald lands and use of heavy materials such as earth (and its more advanced version of baked brick ) and stone. Its structures are continuous, load-bearing walls closed up to form less bright spaces and protected from the heat. Drawing a horizontal line passing through Zaragoza, Florence, that drops to touch Istanbul and leaves below the entire Middle East, The Mediterranean can be divided into two spheres too. The Southern world has not only produced extraordinary works of organic architecture , bringing together the two fundamental tectonic actions of enclosing and roofing in a unitarian and continuous action (and I quote St. Peter`s in Rome , Selimyie Mosque in Edirne, Sultan Hasan Madrasa in Cairo ), but at the same time it has cultivated the organic relationship between architecture and urban fabric . The modernism of the south was also based on a different vision of landscape architecture as a synthesis of architecture and nature , and not as separate architecture from a nature to be landscaped .

To this philosophy , to these poetics and to these construction techniques corresponded  a typical craftsmanship of small architectural offices , where the designer alone could give life to his passion for well-done handicraft buildings, taking care not only for the  appearance of forms, but for the substance of the construction too. The fifties have sanctioned the victory of Nordic modernism for its superior economic and cultural weight .And it went so , but it would have been otherwise .

The season of the “ Other modernism” was very intense in Southern Italy, in Provence and in their Mediterranean colonies such as Libya and Algeria. The panel wants to document not only "another modernism " that was unable to generate  " another contemporaneity " , but also wants to implicitly suggest a recovery of the spirit of craft architecture , like the Italian High Fashion , not to be confused with the spirit of the  Star system in architecture , even in total opposition.

Prof. Dr. Attilio Petruccioli

Annalinda Giulia Neglia. A Different Kind of Modernity. Gardens  and Landscape of the Southern Mediterranean.

 Calogero Montalbano. The Invention of the Italian “ Lungomare “.

 Attilio Petruccioli.  Ludovico Quaroni between Modernism and Classicism.

 Claudio Rubini. The Benghazi Cathedral.

 Giulio Barazzetta. Extra Ordinary stones. The Fernand Pouillon’s Architectural Work as Innovative Insight into the Structure of the Ordinary.

 Domenico Catania.

4

Territorial Rifts and Conflict Borders as Sites of Collaborative Pedagogy

Border Zones, -be it the Cyprus Green Line, the Berlin Wall, the Belfast Peace Lines, the Korea DMZ or the US Mexican Border –have become choice sites for speculative design studios and prospective research. Out of bounds for civilians, and outside the developers realm, these sites are nevertheless important and symbolic landscapes that offer layers of complex and conflicted histories and memories, that need to be dealt with in any reconstruction and reconciliation project.  In these terrains – outside the real estate and political spheres but within insurgent ecologies and occupations– it is possible to develop projects that do not necessarily respond to a social or market need, and to identify possible and meaningful spaces of intervention. In these territories, the architect, urbanist or landscape architect becomes not only the designer, but also the agent of the projectual process.

While the papers are focused on the disciplines or architecture, landscape and urban design, the accent will also be on interdiscplinarity and collaboration in the research and design process.  For example, an interdisciplinary design studio, Borderlands, worked on a series of graphic explorations and verbal arguments

discussing the relationship between landscape, urban form, interiority, architecture and the political, social and cultural transactions that occur within the built environment of the borderlands.  Analysis of the existing built environment’s relationship to the landscape provides a critical view of how the borderland was shaped culturally, socially, and politically.  This base knowledge of cultural inhabitations and geographic adaptations promotes informed decisions regarding appropriateness of proposals and interventions in the future growth and development of the borderlands[1]. Collaboration – between universities, between communities on either side of the dividing line – produce new ways of thinking and strengthen critical reasoning and negotiation skills inherent in any group situation. 

Outside academia and the studio, examples of action-based research can also contribute to the creating new pedagogies and practices in borderlands. At the Edge of the City is an action-based research effort to document the status of Beirut’s park and public space and to bring back the park to public memory and the public debate sphere. The project started with an awareness of the imperative nature of communicating research to a wide audience and of informing political change avenues with contemporary empirical findings and conceptual frameworks. In its own way, the book acts as a platform for a multitude of stakeholders in Beirut’s urban space and for the viewpoints of professionals across disciplines contributing to knowledge production about Beirut’s public space.[2]

This panel proposes to examine a series of architectural, urban design and landsdcape projects elaborated in a studio or educational research context that propose new visions for the contemporary world’s territorial, cultural and social rifts. It will includes contributions from architects, artists, educators, and students, who have participated in these border projects. The geographical context will be focused on the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but will also include other border regions to introduce comparative pedagogies and practices.

Depending on the number of quality papers received,  a special issue or edited volume will be proposed for publication.

Dr. Anna Grichting

Dr. Michael Dear,  Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkely College of Environmental Design. Advanced Topics In Urban Studies: U.S.-Mexican Borderlands

Dr. Karim Hadjiri, Professor in Architecture at the School of Built and Natural Environment, University of Central Lancashire.  Postgraduate Studio on Nicosia Divided City.

Éric Verdeil. Geographer at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) – University of Lyon, UMR Environnement–Ville–Société.  Beirut. The New Front Lines of Urban Resarch.

Carl Steinitz . Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Emeritus.  Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Alternative Futures for the Region of Beit She`an, Jenin and Northern Jordan 

Hallie Boyce and Laurie Olin,  University of Pennsylvania. Slavonice.  Landscape studio on former Iron Curtain between the Czech Republic and Austria.

Yehre Suh, Studio Director, School of Architecture, Cornell University.  Korea DMZ. Parallel Utopias: Strategy of Normalcy and Exception

5

Balkans time of post- professionalism

As a large awareness of a Post-Professional era is becoming more and more palpable, especially due to the macro economical/geographical phenomena affecting architecture and urban practices and methodologies, and if these phenomena’s are then embodied in the urban transformation processes, sometimes quite hectic and not completely clarified, especially in the Balkans, our main question relates to a deep understanding according to the contemporary historical course, of these phenomena and the consequent questions/issues that arise from it:

1 - on the theoretical level (a demand that emerges for new categories of analysis);

2 – in education  (a need for re-organizing the system and the instruments according to the peculiarities embodied in the local context where Institutions work);

3 – in professionalism (re-organization and creation of new instruments in order to give back to the professionals the competences they once had).

Thus the panel discussion in general, intends to focus on the above-mentioned points. A particular attention could be addressed to the realities emerging from neoliberal societies, which derived from the regimes of socialist economies, and to the peculiarities arising from their city/territory transformative processes. These fast transformative processes have been quite recent, and this can be easily understood if we have a look on the informal development, which beyond the legal framework, can further investigated especially regarding the influence in conditioning/transforming the city, especially as physical phenomenon.
The opening up to the free-market economy by many realities of the Balkans, and the resulting/consequent physical transformations which in fact have affected the territory and the urban realities, were almost always investigated and classified according to the informal framework, highlighting above all, the administrative and legal dimensions and also in some cases the dramatic absence of an authority, capable to regulate the specific arising forces and especially to understand the individual stream of each of them. For these realities, a mark of a Post – Professional era seems to be the limited presence of the professionals in the taking place transformations, who can not only guarantee the minimum levels of quality and consistency, but also to address/drive the future transformations, especially in front of the consistency and the range of such transformations. There is one element that paradoxically seems to give a meaning to these phenomena. It seems that they are rooted on the strength of the masses, formed by single individuals and their newly acquired power to transform the city within a framework of intents, which seems to stand unconsciously (and contradictorily) in an anarchistic although vital framework. Some urban realities, especially in the Balkans, tend to assume new characteristics, where the informal term, used to specify the procedural and legal characters, seems to connote even the formal ones, absent on the quality of architectural and urban physical form.

Said that, and considering the above points as a clear evidence of a Balkan time of post- professionalism, a clear demand for this panel session is the ability of the professionals themselves to read, understand and deal properly with these phenomena, in order to control and attributing a sense able to be traced back to the fundamental experience of the city, which made ​​of civilization as shared value preserving at the same time the individual charge. While several and recent paradigms are characterized by the use of the prefixes inter and trans, (i.e.: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity) both in education and in professional practice, by proposing ways of interpreting and reading architectural and urban phenomena, capable of evoking its network of causes that led to them, however, less clear and perhaps more crucial in the ability to return responses, is the question about contemporary professional architects or planners, which together with other expertise should not be restricted to reading socio-economic of the phenomena, but also elaborate those keys that can fall back in their own discipline, which has an eminently transformative nature and aimed at improving the reality.

The purpose of this panel therefore, is to ask the following questions, and to contribute to a substantial collection of answers.

1) In the post - professionalism, the disconnection between spontaneous urban phenomena, and in general between transformation of the territory and the city and those who are called to give plausible answers through their disciplinary knowledge, seems to be to some extent dramatic. One may ask if this detachment is a consequence purely due to this phase of advanced capitalism, and especially the sudden opening to the market by new emerging economies (neoliberal), or whether on the contrary, it is the sign of a inability on the part of architects, planners and the other expertise to understand the phenomena taking place, perhaps because they do not possess the necessary interpretative categories. The panel session then, wants to investigate experiences, surveys, or proposals that would help to provide answers to this first question.

2) A second question on which we would like to direct the panel session is a consequence of the first. By assuming that the traditional background, both educational and professional, owned by the operators, has proved insufficient understanding of some explosive phenomena that characterized the urban areas of the Balkans, the panel wants to call all those contributions that have proved to be able in providing new readings and a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomena, and that above all, they were able to propose an analytic moment consistently followed by a pro-active, able to interfere with reality, and to highlight the need for professionals belonging to the tradition , although renovated.

Prof. Dr. Antonino Di Raimo

6

Città d’acqua e di luce, tra storia e trasformazione

Vogliamo affrontare in questo intervento il tema della città mediterranea, della città di pietra, della città pianificata, della sua trasformazione e del rapporto tra storia e contemporaneità.

Per questo esaminiamo il caso di Lisbona, a partire da suo particolare rapporto con il lungofiume, identificando un tratto consistente che va da Belém al Parque das Naçôes, sede dell’Expo’98.

L’esame si concentra solo su Lisbona, non potendo, purtroppo, comparare la capitale pombalina con nostra città, Palermo, in cui non esistono esempi significativi di recupero e progetto, né del rapporto tra acqua e città, rapporto negato per la assenza di politiche mirate, per l’assenza di progettualità, e per la presenza di un piano che non affronta in termini di sistema e di trasformazione governata, la pianificazione generale, e che non considera la relazione tra gli spazi costruiti e gli spazi aperti, non promuove l’architettura contemporanea o la progettazione di spazi pubblici e giardini.

Tratteremo in particolare del lungo fiume, il fronte del Tejo, inteso non solo come sistema lineare ma come spina generativa dalla quale si innerva una riqualificazione estesa e complessiva che, anche a partire dai progetti puntuali, riguarda l’intera città. E mostreremo, dunque, ciò che sia relativo alle iniziative di Piano, alle azioni della pubblica amministrazione, agli strumenti urbanistici attivati e cogenti, sino ad arrivare a esplorare come alcuni spazi (ad esempio la Praça do Comércio) e alcune architetture, che è possibile definire come “architetture urbane”, e che si pongono chiaramente il problema del confronto con la città intera, proponendo soluzioni  a questioni che trascendono la dimensione dell’edificio. E mostrando come tra urbanistica e architettura ci sia una reale e profonda connessione radicale. Si tratta di spazi aperti (piazze; giardini), di spazi lineari (le spiagge, le piste ciclabili, quali spazi pubblici ed elementi di congiunzione) e di architetture di pietra, che utilizzano sistemi costruttivi contemporanei, ma connessi con la storia locale, sia per ciò che attiene i materiali, sia per ciò che riguarda la “forma” e le “tecniche”, che dunque possano essere considerati come frutto conclusivo di una lunga tradizione che accoglie l’innovazione, senza che essa stravolga l’essenza urbana.

Tali luoghi e architetture sono “mediterranei”, per le ragioni appena dette e in quanto si confrontano con la storia della città mediterranea.

A partire da questo corpus di  elementi e “pratiche” ci porremo quindi il problema di una chiara (nuova?) lettura della mediterraneità, tema molto esplorato, ma frutto anche di grandi equivoci e di letture convenzionali e retoriche.

In relazione a quanto detto, affronteremo il tema delle regole sottese alla pianificazione della città e alla progettazione di queste architetture e di tali spazi aperti: vedremo come esse derivino dal rapporto con la città, con la modalità tramite cui essa è crescita, con la morfologia del territorio, con le risorse (il clima, l’acqua, la vegetazione, la luce) e con l’uso fatto dalla Comunità locale delle stesse risorse. Per le architetture, le regole sono connesse all’applicazione dello status della disciplina, coincidono con la nozione di tipologia definita da Giuseppe Samonà “quella forma di conoscenza in parte nozionistica, in parte creativa, che esprime i modi di dare allo spazio fisico la sua struttura urbana”. Specificamente affronteremo anche il rapporto che alcuni di tali luoghi intrattengono con il tessuto storico, ambientale e monumentale, in prossimità dei quali sono realizzati.

Questo tema delle regole, e del rapporto con la preesistenza e con il monumento, anche contemporaneo, è stato al centro dell’interesse del Dottorato in Progettazione Architettonica di Palermo, che ha avuto come tema il progetto di restauro del moderno, di cui espliciteremo i caratteri, integrandolo con riflessioni sulla progettazione contemporanea, attraverso alcuni risultati di carattere metodologico e progettuale.

Esamineremo così in particolare il sistema urbano soprattutto relativo e prossimo all’area fluviale, e tre nodi urbani, due alle estremità del luogo affrontato, e uno mediano: il primo è il Centro culturale di Belém di Gregotti, nel suo costituirsi come monumento contemporaneo e programmaticamente come parte di città, coi suoi chiari riferimenti alla costruzione in pietra e alla mediterraneità, nel suo confrontarsi con i fondamentali monumenti storici adiacenti della Torre e del Monastero dos Jeronimos. Sarà affrontato anche il tema di alcune “parole d’ordine” dell’architettura di Gregotti, in relazione a un suo modo di porsi rispetto alla questione della teoria dell’architettura e alla teoria della città.

Il secondo caso è costituito dalle architetture del Chiado di Siza, in relazione di profonda continuità con il quartiere distrutto dall’incendio, e in rapporto con la città pombalina (frutto di un’altra catastrofe, quella del 1755), fondamentale esempio di città pianificata, che ha il suo sbocco sul fiume nella Plaça do Comércio: tutti esempi particolarmente evidenti di progetti di respiro urbano.

L’ultimo nodo è il luogo ampio dell’Expo ’98, il Parque de Naçôes, ulteriore esempio di città pianificata per parti, con la volontà di farne un luogo non provvisorio, ma permanente al servizio della città. In particolare tratteremo del Padiglione del Portogallo di Siza, evidente caso di architettura urbana, che si costituisce come fulcro dell’intero spazio dell’Expo; del contiguo Padiglione della Conoscenza dei Mari di Carrilho da Graça, per la sua “mediterraneità” espressa dalle forme e dal suo particolare uso della tipologia della corte;  del sistema dei giardini e dei parchi che funge da testata conclusiva non solo dell’Expo, ma anche di una area vasta della città in strettissima interconnessione con l’acqua. Affrontando il tema delle architetture e degli spazi aperti  faremo riferimento a un esperimento didattico condotto a Palermo sull’Expo, anche per affrontare ulteriormente il tema delle regole rispetto a un sistema compositivo semplice, quello del trilite, posto come elemento base per la progettazione di un sistema di piccoli servizi (bar, ristoranti …..) all’interno dell’ Esposizione.

Prof. Dr. Cesare Ajroldi, Dr. Flavia Schiavo