The Forum on the City at Kent State University

THE FORUM ON MADRID

The Forum on the City at Kent State University Paola Giaconia | ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM COORDINATOR , KENT STATE UNIVERSITY, FLORENCE PROGRAM

The Kent State Forum on the City has been observing, since 2006, the current transformations underway in contemporary cities accross Europe, emphasizing the role that design culture plays in these processes. Initiated by Maurizio Sabini and primarily conceived for students, over the course of the years it has become a stable appointment open to a dialogue with architects, administrators and scholars keen to observe some of the most interesting phenomena related to the construction and transformation of European cities.

The aim of the symposium, since its first edition, has been that of disseminating experiences in urban planning and design strategies, urban architecture projects, urban landscape designs, developments, and policies in major European cities.

We question how designers, along with civic and government leaders, developers and planners, can catalyze innovative opportunities for cities and regional centers to transition into a vibrant future. This is achieved by inviting together a series of key people to explain how a city functions today and how it may function tomorrow.

Besides all this, as has been observed, the Forums that take place in Florence yield a peculiar and just as significant phenomenon: by mobilizing entire design communities and having them meet outside their original contexts, the symposium forces its participants to produce a sort of choral representation of their 12

work, thus opening up a comparison with what happens in the host city, Florence.

The symposium is held in Florence: a city whose invaluably rich burden of history can overwhelm us into apathy and inaction, as seems to have happened in recent years. From Florence we can look to other cities and learn from them. After Milan, Rotterdam, Rome, Genoa, Turin and CittaEmilia, the seventh edition of the Forum is dedicated to Madrid.

Our attention derives not just from the fact that Madrid is one of Europe’s largest metropolitan regions, a socially magnetic and cosmopolitan city that is culturally and economically alive.

There are, in fact, several reasons for our choice: one of the most important is that Madrid seems to have emerged from the past 20 years as a leading center in Europe for design excellence. What underlies this quality? What strategies has Madrid recognized that allow it to succesfully face the difficult times cities

Madrid (...) emerged from the past 20 years as a leading center in Europe for design excellence.

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worldwide are experiencing? What distinctive elements exist here, in the architects’ works, that may inspire future generations of designers?

Discussing Madrid offers insight into how the creativity of architects, along with the wisdom of politicians and administrators, can help develop new processes of transformation that are able to positively change the face of a city.

In other words, Madrid seems to be the ideal base to explore the potential of architectural and urban design in relation to a city, and to demonstrate how architecture can interact with such a complex reality, and at what intensity.

Though Madrid’s architectural legacy, past and present, is especially noteworthy, the city is however defined less by its buildings and more by the social fabric surrounding them. A city where architecture is a means to identify the new social and civic opportunities it may trigger. A city that, by retooling current planning strategies, faces the challenges of this century. A city that, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, seems ready and prepared, by applying original thought and creativity, to design and implement new solutions for its future.

Madrid can be observed as a prototype, repeating conditions typical in contemporary Western cities.

How does this volume reflect the purpose and contents of the Forum? It is not a collection of the symposium proceedings, rather it is an extension of its contents which become the foundation for a sort of guide to the city: a flexible guide, conceived first of all as a practical instrument in the hands of architecture students who, when visiting the cities of the world and of Europe, seem to be more and more in need of up-to-date critical tools and of cues for observing emerging phenomena, while at the same time approaching the deep rationale that inspires their nature.

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The overall aim of the Forum and of this publication is to present an interlocking mosaic of different aspects of Madrid, in part through historical analysis but most importantly by means of a series of case studies. We established the broader context of Madrid as a context that is not limited to architectural conditions (creative and high quality as they may be), but that includes economic, social and political ones as well. We brought together distinguished practitioners from diverse design fields as well as city administrators and representatives from architects’ associations to explore questions through discussions of recent, compelling work. We analyzed the city through various discourses and not strictly from a technical standpoint, and abandoned any technocratic language thus allowing a more productive cross-pollination among disciplines and a wider engagement of the audience.

Thematic maps, which graphically summarize an analytical outlook on the contemporary city, introduce the critical essays offered by the Forum participants. The itinerary, drafted in cooperation with MiMOA, a very practical and useful online architectural resource we are happy to have as a partner in our project, facilitates a visit to the city and to its built heritage.

All materials produced on the occasion of the Forum have been collected in this book which, while not intended to be a final substantive statement about Madrid, may stimulate, we hope, interest and inspiration in the enormous challenge of orchestrating the future of our cities.

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