CHANCES. Practices, Spaces and Buildings in Cities' Tranformation

CHANCES has been an international conference that was aimed to explore, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the fragile but continuous urban transformation through the effective contribution of culture, nature and technology. The aim of this conference was to provide a deeper understanding of urban transformations’ research and practices, focusing on the use, re-use, design, renovation and innovative governance and management of public spaces, urban commons and buildings. We believe that these thoughts will largely contribute to shape and increase sustainable design, construction and planning in constant cities’ transformation. Contributions could build on reflections and studies concerning current or historical approaches that are changing or drastically changed the cities we lived in

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart”. IBA Berlin 1979 – 1987, the drawing as tool to read and disclose

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Costanzo, 1991, p.14) On the occasion of his direction of the Berlin International Bauausstellung (IBA 1979-1987) the German architect Josef Paul Kleihues referred to the fable of Antoine de Saint - Exupéry to encourage architects to awaken the values of ingenuity and imagination. He emphasized the Imago, as a point of reference and stable values at the base of human consciousness. The problem is based on the dialectic between tradition and modernity, the field of experimentation on which he himself elaborates the concept of "critical reconstruction". According to the architect, the rediscovery of the laws of the historic city is a decisive instrument for Berliners to recognize themselves in it. Another important concept which Kleihues placed at the base of his guidelines is the "poetic rationalism" presented during the Triennale di Milano exhibition entitled "The cities of the world of 1988 and the future of the metropolis". On this occasion, he maintained that "the possibility of a new rationalism exists only when the deterministic tendency is questioned by poetry". (Kleihues, 1989, p.57) Through this “poetic rationalism”, he criticizes the excessive bureaucracy that conditions and limits the creative process. One of the most interesting areas of the Berlin International Bauausstellung is the Südliche Friedrichstad. It is interesting to take into account the rules imposed by Josef Paul Kleihues about the permanence of the existing layout and the reconstruction of the continuity of the facades along the plot perimeter and to see how the architects Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas stand about these principles. The proposed study investigates their interpretation of the concept of "poetic rationalism" through drawing, considered by the author as a fundamental interpretative, creative and cognitive activity

Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics, Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media

The Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade and the Society for Aesthetics of Architecture and Visual Arts of Serbia (DEAVUS) are proud to be able to organize the 21st ICA Congress on “Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics: Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media”. We are proud to announce that we received over 500 submissions from 56 countries, which makes this Congress the greatest gathering of aestheticians in this region in the last 40 years. The ICA 2019 Belgrade aims to map out contemporary aesthetics practices in a vivid dialogue of aestheticians, philosophers, art theorists, architecture theorists, culture theorists, media theorists, artists, media entrepreneurs, architects, cultural activists and researchers in the fields of humanities and social sciences. More precisely, the goal is to map the possible worlds of contemporary aesthetics in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. The idea is to show, interpret and map the unity and diverseness in aesthetic thought, expression, research, and philosophies on our shared planet. Our goal is to promote a dialogue concerning aesthetics in those parts of the world that have not been involved with the work of the International Association for Aesthetics to this day. Global dialogue, understanding and cooperation are what we aim to achieve. That said, the 21st ICA is the first Congress to highlight the aesthetic issues of marginalised regions that have not been fully involved in the work of the IAA. This will be accomplished, among others, via thematic round tables discussing contemporary aesthetics in East Africa and South America. Today, aesthetics is recognized as an important philosophical, theoretical and even scientific discipline that aims at interpreting the complexity of phenomena in our contemporary world. People rather talk about possible worlds or possible aesthetic regimes rather than a unique and consistent philosophical, scientific or theoretical discipline

Natural knowledge and Aristotelianism at early modern protestant universities

This volume aims to shed new light on the ways in which science was institutionalized and the central role played by university culture at reformed universities in the early modern period. It particularly explores the relationship between the Aristotelian legacy in Protestant centers of learning and the new natural knowledge which emerged from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. Within the university context, Aristotelianism proved to be a dynamic tradition which we would term a ‘mobile episteme’ in line with the research program of the Collaborative Research Centre Episteme in Motion and the ERC endeavor EarlyModernCosmology (Horizon 2020, GA 725883). The transformation of academic science depended on its circulation in institutional and intellectual networks. The transfer and exchange of knowledge always implied its reformulation and often its deep alteration as well, even in those cases in which the explicit intention of the historical actors was to preserve and secure a received canon of knowledge, such as the corpus Aristotelicum or the Scholastic style of thought. As a matter of fact, the cross-pollination between ‘early’ forms of knowledge and ‘modern’ perspectives produced changes of content, theory, and experience. The fields that underwent major hybridizations and shifts range from astronomy to astrology, medicine, theories of the soul, alchemy, physics, and biology. Because methodologies were revised throughout this process, later instantiations of method, including rhetoric, epistemology, and theories of argumentation must be reevaluated within the terms of this transformative episteme