The conference Absolutely Urban was a success! About 150 participants got together at Tapperiet, the local youth cultural centre, which in itself was a very urban setting for the conference. Absolutely Urban raised questions around the fact that cities, towns, local town communities and rural communities today are all taking part in the big urban competition of providing vibrant and flexible urban areas. asics gel quantum 360 During the day, questions were being asked such as: Is there anything else than urbanity today? How can we handle ”absolute urbanity”, when citizens and consumer groups demand direct and determining participation in a still stronger urbanisation of urban and rural communities? Do we understand how to transfer our experiences – from the exchange with citizens, with art and culture as driving forces and with temporary initiatives – to the permanent solutions? Urbanism is a mental state as well as a perspective of life – what characterizes urbanism as a spiritual frame? The programme had 8 speakers, with several influential researchers and practitioners within the field: Henrik Reeh, Urban Culture Lab/University of Copenhagen, talked about the meaning of being absolutely urban by giving 3 examples of absolutely urban phenomena. nike pour homme pas cher The showed the complexity in the term and that a definition must be wide. Jan Gehl, Gehl Architects, has since more than 40 year been an advocate for building cities between the houses and showed on the importance of building cities for people. nike air tn Gehl claimed that the real problem is how we build new cities, not how we develop the already existing cities. When building new cities we still use our old models, but we need to think new and create housing and city areas for the 21st century. adidas femme Living conditions have changed among other things and we need to adapt our cities to new circumstances. Gehl told us we also need to have a holistic approach and aim for appropriate sustainability where all measures taken have a specific purpose. Kenneth Balfelt, artist, was part of the transformation of the public park Folkets Park in Copenhagen. adidas gazelle He talked about the process of developing the park into a park where everyone wanted to go and of how they combined all the differnt interests of the people using the park. Saskia Sassen, prof. of Sociology at Columbia University, New York, talked about the city and how the city is a zone for making life. Peter Bishop, prof. louboutin homme in Urban Design, The Bartlett School of Architecture, London, held a lecture about the temporary city. The idea that we could freeze the city, making it permanent was big in 20th century. nike air pegasus But Bishop meant that this has changed during the last 20 years and temporary events are starting to capture the way the cities work. Temporary urbanism is a response to the emergence of the consume, it is a fragmentation of democratic consensus, a positive force, an act of hope and a political statement. nike air max thea soldes To illustrate the temporary city he gave examples of beaches in Paris, farmers’ markets on Autobahn, popup furniture in the streets, public art, guerilla gardening, occupants and urban culture. Roberta Brandes Gratz, ’urban critic’, journalist and author, New York gave an image of the a rising tide as she called it, that she has seen in the United states. nike air max pas cher She said that historic cities are doomed. They are a museum and private and commercial interest are pushing urban life out of the cities. Real people don’t get a place in the cities when companies and the rich are buying up real estate. Rebuilding a living city is hard. Axel Timm, Raumlabor, Berlin, talked about the process of transforming the area at the old Tempelhof airport which included a 10 step activation plan frpn creating an organization to creating activities. Jes Möller, director of the Köge Kyst project, was the last speaker of the day and talked about the project and how to drive a long term cultural process. The day ended with at panel discussion that included all speakers and all participants were invited to mingling and networking after that.