THE II FORUM ON UGLINESS ENDS SUCCESSFULLY
THE CONTENTS OF THE FORUM WILL GIVE BIRTH TO A PUBLICATION
The II International Forum on "Ugliness", "Building a country: the rehumanisation of the territory" gave rise to interesting lectures and debates.
The programme of the forum started with an account by Pablo Gallego and Xan Creus, both professors at the Scool of Architecture of A Coruña. They explained the results of a research carried out in 15 places of Galicia with the same number of students by means of a workshop where some specific cases of urbanistic disorders were analysed. Paradoxically, most of them were made under the laws in force.
From then on, the speakers and public followed one another. The architect and town planning professor Xosé Lois Martínez Suárez analysed the case of the valley of Elviña, in the city of A Coruña, as an example of the voracious, ravenous advance of an urban model in which the transport structure are hegemonic then he exposed the possibilities of offering a different discourse and prectical results from Universality.
In similar, though more generic terms, the political expert Ignacio Ramonet reflected about the historical evolution of the city worldwide, with the problems arisen from the big urban concentrations (which even provoke the loss of the "citizenship" concept). He also dealt with "communicaton" (in the widest sense) and how the speculation divides and stratifies the inhabitants of the city. He did not forget to mention that the city is the battlefield of the contemporary wars.
Manuel Gallego Jorreto, architect, vindicated a sensitive look on architecture, in both a social and artistic sense; he spoke about the necessity of a "supramunicipal" urban organisation to avoid most of the problems of the current system, and he finally concluded that "ugliness" is not a bunch of misconstructed, ugly houses, but the process that drives to that state of things.
The Portuguese architect Alexandre Alves Costa vindicated a commited attitude from the architecture world for the change and against the advance of the savage capitalism and its effects, and he reminded the frustrated reformist ideas on the issue during the "Revolução dos Cravos" ("Carnation Revolution") in Portugal.
The Portuguese architect Sergio Fernández spoke about the dividing walls in the present day world, and the lack of places for meeting, living, in contemporary cities, where the first priority is given to road transport and the construction of atribute-less spaces. In order to put this situation to an end, he put the focus in the necessity of a new global political direction.
Juan Luis Dalda, professor of town planning and land organization spoke about "diffuse urbanisation", analysing the demographic heterogeneity in Galicia, pleading for the development of the metropolitan areas as dynamisers of the territory.
The geographer Álvaro Domingues reflected on the necessity of thinking of the different quarters and surroundings of the city, and not only of the town centres. Starting with a studio carried out on air views of portuguese cities, Domingues concluded that people who wintessed their cities from the sky had a double feeling of loss: neither did they see the shape of the "historic", universal city, nor the traditional structure of the rural areas. He used "transgenic" as the most accurate word to define the land today.
Economist Francisco Diniz accounted for the process and results of an investigation about sustainable development in middle and small towns of several European countries, concluding that agriculture-oriented cities promote local development better than cities surrounding the metropolis and tourism-oriented cities do.
Anthropologist Paulo Castro Seixas theorised on the ways of administering the city, proposing the substitution of the "competence model" for the "open discussion of interests"; the shift from a pyramid sctructure to a structure based on horizontality relations. Also anthropologist Xerardo Pereiro spoke of the rural/urban dicotomy in Galicia, a discussion that has been maintained in this country since the 19th C. He also made an outline of the existing alternatives to save th confrontation between those twor perspectives.
Speaking of dynamising activities, José António Bandeirinha, architect, spoke of the experience mentioned by Alves Costa in his intervention: the "SAAL Process", developed in Portugal in the seventies. It was a support programme for the construction of houses promoted by neighbourhood association, applied by the first provisional government of the portuguese reborn democracy. Under this programme, several housing estates were built, in a very interesting initiative.
The Italian educationalis expert Francesco Tonucci entitled his lecture "The city without children is ugly". He insisted on the bases of his project "City of Children": The current city is built and thought for the adults and the vehicles, not for children. However, children need to live in the city to gow up. So it is necessary to think the city also for children, as a form of humanisation.
Maria Aparecida Perez, also specialised in education, told about her experience as Secretary of Education at Sao Paulo city Council during the implantation of the "Unified Educational Centres (CEU)" educational services including facilities and special activities (theatre, swimming-pool, sports centres), located in poor areas of the city, to be used by all the population.
The most international part of the forum, opened it to experiences that brought to the stage the situation in other territories in tension, in order to study to what extent some extreme situations have points in common with those we know from our own environment. Thus, Hama Mohamed Cori, Hama Bunia, mayor of one of the camps for Saharan refugees in Algeria, intervened to speak about the subsistence problems of his people in those conditions. Meir Margalit, historian and Israeli activist for the Palestinian cause, through the NGO Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions — which tries to reconstruct the arab buildings destroyed by the Israeli military — spoke about the urban policy in Jerusalem by means of a study of the indicators of the city and the established policy to hide the presence of arabian elements in the city. He did not forget to speak about the problem of the wall dividing the country in tw areas.
On their part, Palestine Sandi Hilal and Italian Alessandro Petti, architects, spoke about their experience in the Occupied Territories and what they called the "Permanently Provisional State of Palestina". They analysed settlements, walls, roads and other "massive destruction weapons", especially when it comes to the problems the Palestinians have for moving, travelling or even making the most basic moves within the city.
Poet Chus Pato closed the forum, reading a text ellaborated during these days in which she accurately summarised all the elements brought to stage during these days of reflection and exchange of ideas.
The organisation and staff of this II Forum on "Ugliness" positively value the results, brilliantness and energy trnsmitted by the speakers in their lectures and debates. The forum was recorded in video and photos that will eventually be published in a book, along with the ideas discussed in it.
The interest arisen from the subject and the evidence of its universal, not exclusively Galician nature have made possible that other forums on the issue may be celebrated in the future, in Portugal (Porto) and Brazil (Sao Paulo).
The II International Forum on "Ugliness", "Building a country: the rehumanisation of the territory" gave rise to interesting lectures and debates.
The programme of the forum started with an account by Pablo Gallego and Xan Creus, both professors at the Scool of Architecture of A Coruña. They explained the results of a research carried out in 15 places of Galicia with the same number of students by means of a workshop where some specific cases of urbanistic disorders were analysed. Paradoxically, most of them were made under the laws in force.
From then on, the speakers and public followed one another. The architect and town planning professor Xosé Lois Martínez Suárez analysed the case of the valley of Elviña, in the city of A Coruña, as an example of the voracious, ravenous advance of an urban model in which the transport structure are hegemonic then he exposed the possibilities of offering a different discourse and prectical results from Universality.
In similar, though more generic terms, the political expert Ignacio Ramonet reflected about the historical evolution of the city worldwide, with the problems arisen from the big urban concentrations (which even provoke the loss of the "citizenship" concept). He also dealt with "communicaton" (in the widest sense) and how the speculation divides and stratifies the inhabitants of the city. He did not forget to mention that the city is the battlefield of the contemporary wars.
Manuel Gallego Jorreto, architect, vindicated a sensitive look on architecture, in both a social and artistic sense; he spoke about the necessity of a "supramunicipal" urban organisation to avoid most of the problems of the current system, and he finally concluded that "ugliness" is not a bunch of misconstructed, ugly houses, but the process that drives to that state of things.
The Portuguese architect Alexandre Alves Costa vindicated a commited attitude from the architecture world for the change and against the advance of the savage capitalism and its effects, and he reminded the frustrated reformist ideas on the issue during the "Revolução dos Cravos" ("Carnation Revolution") in Portugal.
The Portuguese architect Sergio Fernández spoke about the dividing walls in the present day world, and the lack of places for meeting, living, in contemporary cities, where the first priority is given to road transport and the construction of atribute-less spaces. In order to put this situation to an end, he put the focus in the necessity of a new global political direction.
Juan Luis Dalda, professor of town planning and land organization spoke about "diffuse urbanisation", analysing the demographic heterogeneity in Galicia, pleading for the development of the metropolitan areas as dynamisers of the territory.
The geographer Álvaro Domingues reflected on the necessity of thinking of the different quarters and surroundings of the city, and not only of the town centres. Starting with a studio carried out on air views of portuguese cities, Domingues concluded that people who wintessed their cities from the sky had a double feeling of loss: neither did they see the shape of the "historic", universal city, nor the traditional structure of the rural areas. He used "transgenic" as the most accurate word to define the land today.
Economist Francisco Diniz accounted for the process and results of an investigation about sustainable development in middle and small towns of several European countries, concluding that agriculture-oriented cities promote local development better than cities surrounding the metropolis and tourism-oriented cities do.
Anthropologist Paulo Castro Seixas theorised on the ways of administering the city, proposing the substitution of the "competence model" for the "open discussion of interests"; the shift from a pyramid sctructure to a structure based on horizontality relations. Also anthropologist Xerardo Pereiro spoke of the rural/urban dicotomy in Galicia, a discussion that has been maintained in this country since the 19th C. He also made an outline of the existing alternatives to save th confrontation between those twor perspectives.
Speaking of dynamising activities, José António Bandeirinha, architect, spoke of the experience mentioned by Alves Costa in his intervention: the "SAAL Process", developed in Portugal in the seventies. It was a support programme for the construction of houses promoted by neighbourhood association, applied by the first provisional government of the portuguese reborn democracy. Under this programme, several housing estates were built, in a very interesting initiative.
The Italian educationalis expert Francesco Tonucci entitled his lecture "The city without children is ugly". He insisted on the bases of his project "City of Children": The current city is built and thought for the adults and the vehicles, not for children. However, children need to live in the city to gow up. So it is necessary to think the city also for children, as a form of humanisation.
Maria Aparecida Perez, also specialised in education, told about her experience as Secretary of Education at Sao Paulo city Council during the implantation of the "Unified Educational Centres (CEU)" educational services including facilities and special activities (theatre, swimming-pool, sports centres), located in poor areas of the city, to be used by all the population.
The most international part of the forum, opened it to experiences that brought to the stage the situation in other territories in tension, in order to study to what extent some extreme situations have points in common with those we know from our own environment. Thus, Hama Mohamed Cori, Hama Bunia, mayor of one of the camps for Saharan refugees in Algeria, intervened to speak about the subsistence problems of his people in those conditions. Meir Margalit, historian and Israeli activist for the Palestinian cause, through the NGO Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions — which tries to reconstruct the arab buildings destroyed by the Israeli military — spoke about the urban policy in Jerusalem by means of a study of the indicators of the city and the established policy to hide the presence of arabian elements in the city. He did not forget to speak about the problem of the wall dividing the country in tw areas.
On their part, Palestine Sandi Hilal and Italian Alessandro Petti, architects, spoke about their experience in the Occupied Territories and what they called the "Permanently Provisional State of Palestina". They analysed settlements, walls, roads and other "massive destruction weapons", especially when it comes to the problems the Palestinians have for moving, travelling or even making the most basic moves within the city.
Poet Chus Pato closed the forum, reading a text ellaborated during these days in which she accurately summarised all the elements brought to stage during these days of reflection and exchange of ideas.
The organisation and staff of this II Forum on "Ugliness" positively value the results, brilliantness and energy trnsmitted by the speakers in their lectures and debates. The forum was recorded in video and photos that will eventually be published in a book, along with the ideas discussed in it.
The interest arisen from the subject and the evidence of its universal, not exclusively Galician nature have made possible that other forums on the issue may be celebrated in the future, in Portugal (Porto) and Brazil (Sao Paulo).