Common Cause and Architecture

In the cycle entitled “Common Cause and Architecture”, the examples of successful social debates will be presented in the form of architecture and the organization of space.

The guests invited will show how the use of social potential in city management can contribute to the creation of places which serve integration and favour the empowerment of citizens in their relations with the authority. It is more and more frequent that the inhabitants themselves exercise the right to find the city as they want it to be found, and that social movements are established, focused around various spatial problems.

Inevitably, the right to the city depends on the collective power over the urbanization processes. It should give appropriate consideration to the needs of distinct minorities, e.g. artists or people who want to do sports. What would be the distinctive features of the practice of a democratic, egalitarian and horizontal organization of architectural life, implemented through the federalization of space management? Is it possible to combine the construction of social solidarity with effective housing policy and architecture administration?

The central figures of the cycle will be undervalued spaces: a former printing house, a concrete panel block of flats or a cottage house – all these places, seemingly different from one another – have several things in common: the transformation they have undergone, the non-standard management and the fact that they have become needful to local communities, often becoming the objects of civil movements.