The Death of the City and the Survival of Urban Life

Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona 2004 Conference lectured at the symposium "Urban Traumas. The City and Disasters". CCCB, 7-11 July 2004 Strolling through the cemetery of Montparnasse in Paris, I fantasize a poker game with an ideal community of the defunct that includes...

La rehabilitación del centro histórico de La Habana: Una obra esencialmente humana

Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona 2004 Conferencia pronunciada en el marco del debate "Traumas urbanos. La ciudad y los desastres". CCCB, 7-11 julio 2004 Notas introductorias Narrar la historia de lo acontecido en el Centro Histórico de La Habana, en lo...

Traumas urbanos: La pérdida de la memoria

Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona 2004 Conferencia pronunciada en el marco del debate "Traumas urbanos. La ciudad y los desastres". CCCB, 7-11 julio 2004 Podemos considerar que ciertos traumas urbanos se producen de manera silenciosa y larvada: se trata de la...

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...