Thema Englisch: Throughout the world, cities are increasingly developing iconic buildings, museums, infrastructures or public spaces not only for their actual functions, but also for marketing and branding their respective city image, for attracting tourism and boosting media attention. In this process of urban transformation, star architects and multi-national design, engineering and planning firms are intricately involved. The aim of this workshop series is to investigate this contested practice from various perspectives, which are currently still fractured between architecture, urban studies, geography, sociology, economics and tourism studies.
The seminar series gathers at the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio, Italy, once a year for a period of three years, experts in architecture, urban planning, urban and economic geography. The objective is to discuss the urban implications of the global trend of flagship architecture development and the specific effects over European cities, with particular reference to medium sized cities.
The seminar series will result in a book which features chapters by the workshop participants and is published by Springer Nature. Expected release date is autumn of 2019.
Researchers: Alain Thierstein, Nadia Alaily-Mattar, Diane Arvanitakis, Johannes Dreher
Cooperation Partner: Davide Ponzini (Politecnico di Milano), Maria Gravari- Barbas and Francesca Cominelli (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University)