Productive Disagreement Series:

CITY BRANDING/MAKING

September 13, 2013, 1pm

Parque de Naçoes – Portugal Pavilion

 

World Fair Exhibitions, Olympic Games, World Cup Championships or even Biennials or Triennials to a certain degree, are global events that carry at their core messages of cultural exchange and cross-cultural dialogue through competition and the global exposure of ideas, design or skill.

 

For politicians however, the underlying forces behind these events are very different: on one hand they allow urban and infrastructural transformations to occur with a scale of investment unimaginable within contemporary political terms; and, on the other hand, they offer an entry point for a global reputation with an aura of cosmopolitanism that stays well beyond the dates of the event. These events have become a way of branding, but also a way of making.

 

The sites associated with these urban interventions are usually unresolved urban places or sites of conflict (like the ongoing favela demolitions throughout Brazil’s future World Cup Stadium sites). Displacement and gentrification are direct effects of these global events. This Productive Disagreement Series brought to the table positions that defend and question these contemporary forms of city making/branding, their effects and other possible options for the development of cities in the 21st century.

 

Participating Agents

Noura Al Sayeh (Bahrein, architect)

Matilde Cassani (Milan, architect)

Andrew Griffin (Dublin, architect)

Jimenez Lai (Chiacgo, architect)

Anna Maria Mesiter (Munich, architect)

Tiago Mota Saraiva (Lisbon, architect)

Joaquim Moreno (Lisbon/New York, architect and editor)

Moderated by Eva Franch i Gilabert 

 

Productive Disagreement Series events develop conversations between ideologically opposed institutions, artists or architects. The events avoid compromise and agreement as a methodology of dialogical exchange, and promote confrontation and dialogue in order to generate a responsive audience, increase participation, and obtain a multiplicity of viewpoints.