The Quality of Life from Europe

The themes discussed in Brussels are the same as those to be unraveled by the participants at the XXIII UIA World Congress of Architecture

“The world is both flat and spiky” Mark Kleinman, Director of Migration and Chief Social Researcher, Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) United Kingdom, takes the famous saying, of the internationally renowned “Foreign Affairs” columnist of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, a step further and rewrites it.

“We have used the world as a laboratory for our experiments and this has resulted in a world which is ugly, environmentally dangerous and has potential geocidal consequences”

The widely criticized globalization, that was supposed to flatten everything thing “flattenable”, ironing out the differences and standardizing identities, cities and thought processes, is now being reconsidered because, in the end, it seems that its contagious frenzy, has succeeded in generating diversity and identities. “Migration – argues Kleinman – is one of the key drivers of a city’s growth and development”. And therefore cities in the spiky world must be reassessed for their diversities, their problems should be faced “inclusively” and everyone should have their say.

These issues where discussed in the context of the “Designing for the Future: The market and Quality of Life” congress that on April 10 2008 reunited the Architects’ Council for Europe in Brussels, in a room, to tackle the problems of urban design, today. The Leitmotif that was hovering in the air, went more or less like this: Architecture must be a prophet for a planet that needs saving, cities that need rethinking, and new design policies that need inventing.

First of all, considering it’s impossible to ignore the importance of the social aspect, and teamwork in architecture: «all those who live in cities should have a say – declared Petrella, professor of Human Ecology, Accademia di Architettura dell’Universita Svizzera-Italiana – but current urban policies are decided by an oligarchy of the cultural, religious, political and economic elite. Today’s cities are like hurricanes: uncomfortable, fragmented places, full of poverty, anxiety and fear, where people feel excluded. We need to abolish violence and exclusion to reduce the gap between rich and poor».

But mankind isn’t in the spotlight. The planet has launched its mayday and its inhabitants are obliged to respond. Especially architects, who build it:“We have used the world as a laboratory for our experiments and this has resulted in a world which is ugly, environmentally dangerous and has potential geocidal consequences”, – says Richard Parker, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University, USA – three-quarters of the world’s population say that protecting the environment is a top global priority, this has not changed the way the world operates. For example African-Americans who lost their homes after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were re-housed in building whose walls leaked the carcinogen formaldehyde”.

To avoid exploding Pandora’s box, architects and all professionals should prioritize by protecting the environment with aesthetic values and economical interest, adopting a holistic way of thinking, so that our future global cities don’t become «islands on an ocean surrounded by the poor and beggars”. The participants at Brussels all agreed on this.