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,...

For the City Yet to Come: Remaking Urban Life in Africa

  Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona 2003 Conference lectured at the cycle "Mapping Africa". CCCB, 17 February 2003 Introduction Urban Africans have long made lives that have worked. There has been an astute capacity to use thickening fields of social relations, however,...

Apollonians and Dionysians in the face of mass architecture: Five theses in twenty-five paragraphs

Luis Fernández-Galiano Apollonians and Dionysians in the face of mass architecture Five theses in twenty-five paragraphs A prologue or summary Confronted by the great challenges of the end of the century, architects are uncertain whether to adopt Apollonian reasoning which impels them to provide...