Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Prof. Florian Urban at the Think & Drink - Colloquium

Montag, 18.05.2015 at the Think & Drink - Colloquium Prof. Florian Urban The New Tenement
  • Wann 18.05.2015 von 18:00 bis 20:00
  • Wo Raum 002: Universitätsstr. 3b, 10117 Berlin
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Montag, 18.05.2015

 

Prof. Florian Urban,

History of Architecture and Urban Studies (HAUS)
Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art

 

 

The New Tenement

 

The project analyses New Tenements, that is, high-density, multi-storey urban residences that have been erected since the 1970s, often (but not always) following models from the nineteenth century. It concentrates on five sample cities, Berlin, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Rotterdam and Vienna.

 

New Tenements are being analysed as the architecture of the “return to the city” – that is, the symbolic reversal of suburbanisation and the inception of a new discourse that connects inner-city residency with civic liberties, public life, cultural innovation, democratic governance, and social justice. Taking a critical perspective on architecture as a significant factor in this process, the project maps the “return to the city” in terms of historic origins, evolution, design, and local differences.

 

The project started in May 2014 and is financed by a two-year grant by the Leverhulme Trust. The presentation will be a report on a work in progress. The author is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Metropolitan Studies, Berlin Technical Unversity.

 

Florian Urban is Professor and Head of History of Architectural/Urban Studies at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Berlin, an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA and a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Architecture from MIT. He research on the post-1970 period in East Germany led to the publication of his booksNeo-historical East Berlin – Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic 1970-1990 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009). He is also the author of Tower and Slab – Histories of Global Mass Housing (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).