Santiago de Chile
The Contemporary and Historic Public City - Design and Concepts for Public Urban Spaces
Workshop module “The Contemporary and Historic Public City – Design and Concepts for Public Urban Spaces” to be held the 2nd project year at PUCC in Santiago de Chile
The objective of the workshop is to bring together students and lectures of architecture, urban planning and design from the participating universities in order to build up and exchange knowledge and experience concerning the research and design of public space in both the historic and contemporary city.
The workshop model enables the participants to engage in both analyzing and comparing the evolution of the urban development in the participating countries as well as practical design projects in selected areas of these cities. Urban-theoretical issues will be linked with physical design problems.
The articulation of the public domain in a central aspect of every city, the specific identity of many of them has in the past been determined by important and clearly recognizable public spaces. However, in the 20th century, the articulation and configuration of traditional public spaces has partially lost its previous significance, and today public spaces are challenged by processes of privatization and commercialization. In Latin America the lack of planning, illegal city development and its related local problems has added to this decline.
It is vital for planners, urban designers and architects to find a position regarding these developments and look for ideas and strategies that overcome their negative aspect. Doing this in a comparative European-Latin America perspective and researching similarities and differences in the metropolitan development could be of great value for the conception of future planning strategies.
As the future urban and architectural universities take primarily place within the context of the already “existing” city and its urban restructuring, the comparative historical approach becomes highly relevant. Successful operations require a more profound understanding of the inherent logic of the different historical and structural parts of the cities. Understanding the past and learning the lessons to be derived from it enable architects and urban planners a better conception to tackle urgent needs and create a vision for the future.