Urbanity Research

  • LectureThe Place of the City, between image and identity
  • Lecture Mariusz CzepczyńskUrban semiotics.Meaning and form of Central European cities

Teams of students from architectural schools will work during summer semester 08/09 and winter semester 09/10 on research in their respective capitals. Seven teams will share their experience of urban spaces with the aim of reflecting on city development and proposing future visions for Central European capitals in workshops in Prague.

The aim of the whole project is to make the city more readable and understandable. The identity we understand is not a description of the current situation but a vision. A vision not in sense of futuristic screenplays, but a vision based on the city background. We do not want to solve particular small problems or fix them. Reparations and consolidations of the status quo are today’s common strategies of all European cities. The project should be on the opposite side, the project should bring new optimism to the cities.

In the Urbanity project we should free ourselves and look for real meanings of the terms we daily operate with. It is important to focus on the new meaning of the capitals in Europe at the beginning of the XXI century. The project has already received support from five mayors-in Prague, Bratislava, Vienna, Ljubljana, and Budapest- and the last two are in process. The power of the project is in joining all seven cities and all researchers together.