10 September - 22 October 2009

Changes & continuity in the city
If the home lies at the origins of architecture, the street marks the start of the city. Patterns of streets lead directly to the nature of the city, just as the home tells the story of its occupants. The street orients us in the city and directs our perception of urban reality.

The city streets and the pattern that they form are both as hard as rock and as soft as butter. This pattern grows and changes, but is often preserved in essentials where buildings are demolished and rebuilt. On the other hand, this system is fragile and vulnerable, and the subtle equilibrium in which it is maintained can easily be disrupted.

The city develops along lines. The public or collective domain is located in these capillaries of the city. This structure of streets and roads exposes society as such. These structures, and the way in which opposing interests find expression, are staged, and are played out here, are the result of society and social relations. The streets of the city are regarded as the linear areas in which the conflict of interests is fought out and crystallised.
 
In this game of great interests, the urban planner can only build somebody else’s ideas. He can only shape the representation of these ideas. The urbanist is humble to the powers, be it the Bishop, the King or the People. He is only the organ grinder of the city.

Yet sometimes a city takes a decisive turn. When did that happen? Which intervention defined the face of the city as it has entrenched itself in our collective memory? What were the driving forces behind these transformations? And what was the role of the urban planner or architect? Capita Selecta in the autumn of 2009 focuses on Milestones in the City: the big intervention in the city as a cultural expression and as a trace that has been left behind.

Programme

10-09-2009
Henk Hartzema, STREETWORKS Inaugural Lecture
www.studiohartzema.com

17-09-2009
Len de Klerk
The birth of Dutch Modernism. The Netherlands after the fall of the fortifications
www.fmg.uva.nl/amidst

24-09-2009
Michel Carmona
Haussmann: His life and times, and the making of modern Paris

01-10-2009
Alex Krieger
The Jefferson grid. The road system as reflection of a society of equal chances
www.chankrieger.com

08-10-2009
Luca Molinari
Tutte la strade portano a Roma. From Mussolini to Neorealism: the Italian street as ideological representation
www.yskira.com/mag/luca-molinari

15-10-2009
Wilfried van Winden
The Reichsautobahn and the idea of German empire
www.wam-architecten.nl

22-10-2009
Joan Busquets
Cerda and the Barcelona of the future. Reality versus plan
www.bau-barcelona.com