November Talks 2019: Transforming professional boundaries in a changing world
18/9/2019
“I reached out to architects, urban planners and landscape architects who in their work cross the boundaries between these traditionally clearly-defined fields, and who place emphasis on creating a habitable, or living, environment without regard to the scale and type of assignment. In their projects, it is difficult to determine where one profession ends and the other begins, and that is a big challenge for the collaboration and teaching of these professions,” explains Irena Fialová, vice dean for foreign relations at the Faculty of Architecture at CTU Prague.
This year’s November Talks series bears the subheading “Transformation: Transforming the Boundaries of Professions in a Changing World,” which will also be the theme of the international conference of the European Association for Architectural Education, EAAE. “New Dimensions: Reflections on the Growing Scale and Overlap of Disciplines”, which the Faculty of Architecture at CTU in Prague will be organizing at the end of August 2020.
Ivana a Jan Bendovi
The series will be kicked off by Ivana and Jan Benda, Czech-Canadian architects and urban planners with extensive professional experience around the world, who are now living back in Canada after having spent the past 20 years of working in China. Their subject relates to the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. It is a look back at the key study they undertook in the 1970s, under the guidance of Jiří Ševčík, at the then newly-established Faculty of Architecture, and from which they drew inspiration in their international architectural and urban planning work.
JEAN–MARC FRITZ
The second presentation will be by French architect and urban planner, Jean-Marc Fritz, who is also a partner at the SEURA office and the co-designer of the extremely complex, urbanistic, landscape and infrastructure project of the new transport hub, park and city center Les Halles in Paris. His lecture will be devoted to the “Belly of Paris”, and its most recent reconstruction, which the SEURA office planned and coordinated.
MICHEL DESVIGNE
The third guest lecturer will be Michel Desvigne, renowned French landscape architect, and one of the stars of the reSITE conference in 2014. Desvigne is a landscape architect, collaborating with global architectural offices such as Herzog & de Meuron, Foster + Partners and Jean Nouvel. He will be talking about the transformation of the profession of landscape architect and its challenges, which today are primarily climatic and environmental, rather than aesthetic, as it was in the past.
ALI MADANIPOUR
On the first Monday in December, the series will conclude with a lecture by Ali Madanipour, an urban theorist and professor of land-use planning specializing in sociology. Madanipour is the author of dozens of publications cited with exceptional frequency. His personal experiences from his childhood and growing up in the Middle East coupled with a British education and being taught to think critically allow him to view the problems of European Urbanism in broader contexts, and thus to open key subjects. “He is interested in drums that echo deep,” explains Irena Fialová.
NOVEMBER TALKS 2019 PROGRAM AT THE CTU FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE
The lectures will always be held on Monday from 6:00 p.m., in the lecture hall 155 Gočár at the Faculty of Architecture, Thákurova 9, Prague 6 Dejvice. The lectures will be in English. They are open to students and the general public, entry is free, with disabled access. A welcome drink will be served in the foyer from 5:30 p.m., along with an informal meeting with the lecturers.
November 4, 2019 Ivana and Jan Benda
- Benda Architects (CAN)
- Image of the City. From Research to Design to Build
November 18, 2019 Jean-Marc Fritz
- SEURA Architectes (FR)
- Les Halles de Paris: Interior Cities
November 25, 2019 Michel Desvigne
- MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste (FR)
- Transforming Landscapes
December 2, 2019 Ali Madanipour
- Newcastle University (BG)
- Crossing the Boundaries: In-between Spaces and Dialogic Practices
Links:
Contact: Ing. arch. Kateřina Rottová Ph.D., rottokat@fa.cvut.cz, tel. 778 750 052