Let the Transmitting Begin!
The architects of the whole world in Turin to imagine a future architecture that addresses about new values and needs
Riccardo Bedrone
There are a number of things that lend this event great importance: first and foremost, this is the first time that a UIA world congress has been held in Italy. And the fact that the host city is Turin, a city that has attracted unprecedented international attention in the past few years, makes this even more meaningful.
But our pride comes not only from being chosen to host such a prestigious event. The theme chosen for the congress is a key, strategic theme in view of the current debate on the future of social evolution in both the developing and developed worlds, and the role that architecture can and must play is a highly topical issue. In Turin in July the thousands of architects and students taking part will have the opportunity to tackle a complex, engaging theme: “transmitting architecture”. What lies behind this slogan is a clear desire to take on and analyse the role of architecture at the heart of the most significant processes of change under way today.
Cities bear all the consequences of mistaken interpretations of current social conflict, and doggedly continue to consume increasingly rare resources such as water, land and energy, for the most part used by those who can to ward off fear of death, solitude and marginalization
And the congress intends this transmission to be a two-way process: architecture communicating its meaning and function to the various social players, but also architecture on the receiving end, picking up demands, values and expectations, and interpreting and developing these as part of the process of adapting the landscape.
This is a fundamental premise when it comes to ensuring that architects can play their part in a process that leads to the construction of a community based on equality, respect for diversity, aware of the consumption of resources and open to new visions, based on equilibrium and generating peace, not conflict.
Obviously these are demanding commitments, a ‘political’ agenda that goes beyond just the Turin congress. Because the aim is to get the professionals, now increasingly aware of the urgency of finding solutions, to acknowledge the importance of not operating with indifference to the social context. Today’s architects, alongside other key players, are the drivers of a process which gives rise to and reinforces urban democracy.
Where administrators, politicians, business people, architects, social bodies and local organizations meet is the terrain which gives rise to plans shared by the population. This is the true driver of responsible, sustainable development, the only approach that can offer effective responses to the big issues of the third millennium, above all in terms of the future of cities. For cities embody the fragilities of our difficult era, with their persistent, long-standing inability to offer a model of emancipation from “evil and pain”, the impossibility of representing them except by means of useless or unsettling “landmark projects”, permanent displays of monumental vulgarity, huge, pointless constructions. Cities bear all the consequences of mistaken interpretations of current social conflict, and doggedly continue to consume increasingly rare resources such as water, land and energy, for the most part used by those who can to ward off fear of death, solitude and marginalization.
The Congress sets out to explore the dividing line between modernity and retrogression, and to understand what to offer to the modern world and forthcoming generations. Not huge expanses of slums, and not ghost cities which come out of nowhere: we need to go beyond the fragility of projects for the future dominated by an inability to make out its needs, beyond caving in when faced with the seemingly unstoppable forces of change, and beyond carving out occasional urban spaces in vast, sprawling cities. Cities within cities, strangers to one another, vacuums indifferent to the laws of nature, yet incapable of coming up with other models to respond to the needs of the exponential growth of the population, are a metaphor for our inability to produce the very thing we need: fewer goods and more social relations and conscience.
At the Turin Congress architecture will not only be addressing its own sphere. Indeed many of the guest speakers are not architects, and will be talking about the interactions between architecture and the other disciplines and activities involved in processes of transformation. The underlying concept was to elicit interdisciplinary debate, the only feasible response to the complexity and structure of the various economic and social elements coming to the fore the world over.
Each day of the congress is dedicated to a specific theme which represents a possible interpretation of the overall theme and a means for exploring it in greater depth. Firstly “culture”, namely revisiting history through architecture, as a way of conveying and handing down traditions and transmitting the history and culture of populations over time: heritage passed down the generations. Then “democracy”, the commitment required to construct the present by means of creating conditions of transparency, communication and mediation where architecture can contribute to providing a tangible response to the demands of the community. And lastly “hope”: the intellectual and technical contributions which are a condition for developing areas and the environment, compatibly with the available resources. Architects have a moral duty to envisage a “sustainable” future, a world we can continue to inhabit in the years to come.
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The theme “Transmitting Architecture” should be interpreted as it was conceived by the international advisory board of the Congress, pertaining to architects’ involvement in the future of civil life. The Turin Congress will explore how architecture and society relate and listen to one another, and how this “transmission” can lead to formulating projects committed to a future based on sustainability, equality and greater peace. This is a topical theme throughout the world, just as the Congress, from 29 June to 3 July, is an event of world importance. The programme is structured around three main days: 30 June dedicated to the culture of architecture, 1 July addressing the concept of urban democracy and 2 July debating hope and the future.
