But Malice Aforethought: Cities and the Natural History of Hatred

Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona 2004 Conference lectured at the symposium "Urban Traumas. The City and Disasters". CCCB, 7-11 July 2004 Introduction «You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door...

New Frontiers and Universal Values

Transcribed from the lecture given at the cycle on "Borders". Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona,  22 March 2004 "Many Cultures, One Humanity". It's a beautiful frame for thinking in our contemporary liquid order and very complex, very difficult, very risky,...

The Geometry of Occupation

Conference lectured at the cycle "Borders". Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona , 1st March 2004 1. Some Principles of Frontier Geography If borders are nothing but abstract lines denoting the edges of jurisdictions, barriers make them concrete. With the complete mechanization...

On Collective Memory, Central Space and National Identity

Conference lectured at the symposium "Beirut: Civil Pleasures, Civil Wars". Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona , 5-7 June 2005 Observing Beirut in the throes of reconstruction is a bewitching, often beguiling, experience; both existentially and conceptually. From a close and...

Les conditions de l’urbain : À propos de l’espace public et de la politique

Spaces of Risk, Spaces of Citizenship and Limits of the 'Urban' in European cities

Conference lectured at the symposium "(In)visible Cities. Spaces of Hope, Spaces of Citizenship". Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, 25-27 July 2003. Introduction The easiest way for me to introduce this lecture is by paraphrasing the title of the Conference, if I am...

Reflections on the future of the city

The Urban Imaginary

Published in the exhibition catalogue The City that Never Was. Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona,  2003 Does the city lend itself to reverie or to the dream? At first sight the city as a monumental built space does not trigger the equivalent of the rustic or...

Habits/Habitus/Habitat

 Published in the exhibition catalogue Present and Futures. Architecture in Cities. Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, 1996 With the Catholicism of A. W. N.Pugin in England and the Fourierism of Victor Considérant and César Daly in France,...