Urban Age: Shaping Cities

The Urban Age “Shaping Cities” conference (July 14-15) is integrated with the 15th International Architecture Exhibition curated by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena and organized by La Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta (28th May – 27th November 2016), the world’s most high-profile architectural event visited by over 300,000 people. Hosted by La Biennale di Venezia in the context of the Special Project “Report from Cities: Conflicts of an Urban Age”, it is organised in partnership with United Nations Habitat III.

The two-day Urban Age conference, organised by the London School of Economics and the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft, is designed to bring the world of cities and city-makers to Venice. With hundreds of projects displayed across the city for the15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, it provides an ideal context to feed fresh ideas to the United Nations Habitat III conference on Sustainable Cities to be held in Quito in October 2016. To this end, the Director of Habitat III and Under-Secretary of the United Nations Joan Clos will participate and provide closing remarks on what messages to take forward in formulating a New Urban Agenda to help shape the future of the 21st century.

The Urban Age conference in Venice is organised around in six distinct themes:

Who Owns the City? What are the main political and economic forces shaping urban societies?- Expansion or Redevelopment? Can spatial planning tame urban growth and what are the impacts of urban form on productivity, the environment and social inclusion?
Adaptation and Social Integration. How do existing residents adapt to the arrival of newcomers and how can their interactions be shaped by different physical environments?
What Role for Architecture? How can design ingenuity be harnessed to respond to everyday social and environmental battles? What are the limits of the design profession in addressing both the scale and nature of the urban condition?
Scales of Intervention: a comparative overview of bottom-up and top-down approaches to urban design, repair and planning including projects from cities across the world.
Shaping the New Urban Agenda. What are the main messages emerging from architecture, urban design and planning for Habitat III? What forces will shape the New Urban Agenda.

See the full programm.