Cities across the world have been resorting to star architects to brand their projects, spark urban regeneration and market the city image internationally. This book shifts the attention from star architects to star architecture, arguing that the process of deciding about and implementing relevant architectural and urban projects is not the product of any single… [read more]

Lukas Gilliard, Fabian Wenner, Alain Thierstein and Nadia Alaily-Mattar, team members and PhD students at the Chair of Urban Development, have published a new book chapter titled "The Transformative Capacity of Regional Design". The contribution by is part of the edited book "Shaping Regional Futures - Designing and Visioning in Governance Rescaling", edited by… [read more]

For the past three years this seminar series gathered experts in architecture, urban planning, urban and economic geography annually at the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio, Italy. The third and last of this series was held from 8th-9th of October 2019. [read more]

Can star architecture projects contribute to repositioning their respective cities? What is the role of media exposure in this process? [read more]

"Flight shame" is on everyone's lips in 2019, and the scientific community is also increasingly discussing the effects of its activities on the global climate. Can air travel to conferences still be justified in view of the pollutant emissions? They are contrasted by (even "accidental") knowledge spillovers, such as personal face-to-face contacts at conferences, which… [read more]

The workshop was held from 19th through 20th June, 2018 at the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio, Italy. It was organized by Alain Thierstein, Nadia Alaily-Mattar (both Technical University of Munich), Davide Ponzini (Politecnico di Milano), Maria Gravari- Barbas and Francesca Cominelli (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University) and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft… [read more]

Special Issue "Urban transformations through exeptional architecture" Alain Thierstein and Nadia Alaily-Mattar have edited a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design (Volume 23, Issue 2, April 2018) titled "Urban transformations through exeptional architecture". The focus of the special issue is the nexus between architecturally exceptional projects and the city.… [read more]

The first workshop of the seminar series “Flagship Architecture, Multinational Design Firms and the Urban Transformation of European Cities” was held from 25th-26th of November, 2017 at the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio. The Chair of Urban Development of the TUM Department of Architecture initiated the workshop which is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG in… [read more]