From polyglot playgrounds to tourist traps? Designing and redesigning the modern seaside resorts in Bulgaria

Between the mid 1950s and early 70s, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria planned and built four large-scale holiday resorts on the Black Sea Coast – for domestic ‘social tourism’ as well as for international holidaymakers. According to fordist principles, sun, sand and sea were turned into an all-round ‘tourist product’, including architecture and urbanism as essential components. The seaside resorts were testing grounds for an uncompromisingly modern architecture, urbanism and lifestyle – with comfortable hotel complexes, restaurants and leisure facilities in a wide variety of architectural styles and design themes. Modern spaces par excellence were created, interfaces for professional exchange across the Iron Curtain and places of encounter between tourists from East and West. Tourism became an important sector for the Bulgarian economy under state socialism and has remained so under present-day capitalism. However, the shifts in organizational structures and property relations since 1989 have profoundly changed the resorts’ architectural appearance. This contribution discusses how planning practices and architectural images of modernism have shifted from era to era, starting with the resorts’ foundation in the 1950s and their development towards mass tourism in the 1960s. It then deals with privatization and the construction boom on the Black Sea Coast in the post-socialist decades. Case studies of the Sunny Beach and Albena resorts demonstrate how differently tourism, planning and real estate actors deal with the built heritage and modernist ideas today: from radical neglect within an eclectic urban chaos to a more respectful, clear-sighted upgrading of the original modern architectures.Von Mitte der 1950er Jahre bis in die frühen 70er plante und baute die Volksrepublik Bulgarien vier großmaßstäbliche Ferienresorts an der Schwarzmeerküste - für den bulgarischen 'Sozialtourismus' wie auch für internationale Urlaubsgäste. Nach fordistischen Prinzipien wurden Sonne, Sand und Meer in ein umfassendes 'touristisches Produkt' verwandelt, wobei Architektur und Städtebau eine besondere Rolle spielten: Die Küstenresorts waren Laboratorien einer kompromisslos modernen Architektur, Planung und Lebensweise - mit komfortablen Hotelkomplexen, Restaurants und Freizeiteinrichtungen in vielfältigen Architekturstilen und Gestaltungsthemen. So entstanden moderne Räume par excellence, Schnittstellen für den blockübergreifenden Planungsdiskurs und Begegnungsorte für Urlauberinnen aus Ost und West. Seitdem hat sich der Tourismus zu einem der wichtigsten Wirtschaftssektoren Bulgariens entwickelt. Der Wandel der Wirtschafts- und Eigentumsstrukturen nach 1989 führte allerdings auch zu einer tiefgreifenden baulichen Transformation der Resorts. In diesem Beitrag wird ausgeführt, wie sich die Planungspraktiken und Architektursprachen über die Jahrzehnte veränderten, beginnend mit der Gründung der Resorts in den 1950er Jahren und der Ausprägung des Massentourismus während der 1960er Jahre. Dann wird die Privatisierung und der Bauboom an der Schwarzmeerküste nach dem Systemwechsel in den Blick genommen. Anhand der kontrastierenden Beispiele der Urlaubsresorts Sonnenstrand und Albena wird dargestellt, wie mit dem baulichen Erbe der Moderne in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten umgegangen wurde: radikale Missachtung des Bestehenden und planlose bauliche Verdichtung auf der einen und weitsichtigere Aufwertungsstrategien innerhalb des modernen Bestands auf der anderen Seite

Industrial Infrastructure: Translocal Planning for Global Production in Ethiopia and Argentina

Current development and re-development of industrial areas cannot be adequately understood without taking into account the organisational structures and logistics of commodity production on a planetary scale. Global production networks contribute not only to the reconfiguration of urban spatial and economic structures in many places, but they also give rise to novel transnational actor constellations, thus reconfiguring planning processes. This article explores such constellations and their urban outcomes by investigating two current cases of industrial development linked with multilateral transport-infrastructure provisioning in Ethiopia and Argentina. In both cases, international partners are involved, in particular with stakeholders based in China playing significant roles. In Mekelle, Ethiopia, we focus on the establishment of a commodity hub through the implementation of new industry parks for global garment production and road and rail connections to international seaports. In the Rosario metropolitan area in Argentina, major cargo rail and port facilities are under development to expand the country’s most important ports for soybean export. By mapping the physical architectures of the industrial and infrastructure complexes and their urban contexts and tracing the translocal actor constellations involved in infrastructure provisioning and operation, we analyse the spatial impacts of the projects as well as the related implications for planning governance. The article contributes to emergent scholarship and theorisations of urban infrastructure and global production networks, as well as policy mobility and the transnational constitution of planning knowledge and practices

CNS Antigen-Specific Neuroinflammation Attenuates Ischemic Stroke With Involvement of Polarized Myeloid Cells.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Experimental studies indicate shared molecular pathomechanisms in cerebral hypoxia-ischemia and autoimmune neuroinflammation. This has led to clinical studies investigating the effects of immunomodulatory therapies approved in multiple sclerosis on inflammatory damage in stroke. So far, mutual and combined interactions of autoimmune, CNS antigen-specific inflammatory reactions and cerebral ischemia have not been investigated so far. METHODS Active MOG35-55 experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) was induced in male C57Bl/6J mice. During different phases of EAE, transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO, 60 minutes) was induced. Brain tissue was analyzed for infarct size and immune cell infiltration. Multiplex gene expression analysis was performed for 186 genes associated with neuroinflammation and hypoxic-ischemic damage. RESULTS Mice with severe EAE disease showed a substantial reduction in infarct size after tMCAO. Histopathologic analysis showed less infiltration of CD45+ hematopoietic cells in the infarct core of severely diseased acute EAE mice; this was accompanied by an accumulation of Arginase1-positive/Iba1-positive cells. Gene expression analysis indicated an involvement of myeloid cell-driven anti-inflammatory mechanisms in the attenuation of ischemic injury in severely diseased mice exposed to tMCAO in the acute EAE phase. DISCUSSION CNS autoantigen-specific autoimmunity has a protective influence on primary tissue damage after experimental stroke, indicating a very early involvement of CNS antigen-specific, myeloid cell-associated anti-inflammatory immune mechanisms that mitigate ischemic injury in the acute EAE phase

From Flagship Store to Factory: Tracing the Spaces of Transnational Clothing Production in Istanbul

The globalized production of consumer goods and its specific settings and circulation routes have not yet played a significant role in research into the effects of globalization on cities and urban built structures – although industrial production for the world market is obviously shaping urban environments in newly industrialized countries across the globe. This article examines global commodity chains as an integral strand of urban research, in particular, by tracing a transnational production chain in the clothing industry and investigating the urban setting and architectural profile of selected stations thereof – from sites of clothing retail in Berlin to sites of wholesale, clothing production and home-based work in Istanbul and beyond. Aspects of representation and visibility are a primary focus: How does the position of a certain production step within the value chain correspond to its material presence in the city and the representative function of its architecture? Following commodities along their transnational production and trading routes offers a new perspective on globalization and the urban built environment. It reveals translocal connections between various urban places and exposes the spatial logic of a hierarchical production system

Globalizing urban research, grounding global production networks

Geographically dispersed networks of production interact with urban economic development and contribute to shape the built environment and urbanization processes all over the world. However, the global manufacturing of goods and their circulation have not yet been given adequate attention in the field of urban research. This article charts a research framework to study the interplay between urban spaces and globalized industrial production. We argue that a relational perspective on multi-local economic processes as provided by commodity chain approaches, specifically the Global Production Networks (GPN) framework, ought to be integrated into urban research in order to grasp the driving forces and the transnational character of urban development in places of industrial production. In the first section of the article, we discuss the conceptual base and benefits of integrating the GPN approach with an urban research perspective centred on the analysis of the built environment. In the second section, we operationalize these considerations in an analytical framework which we apply to a multi-local and relational case study of clothing manufacturing locations in the Istanbul metropolitan region in Turkey, the South Bulgarian province Kardzhali and the periphery of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. Our findings illuminate the site-specific, yet interdependent mutual transformation of global production networks and urban space, giving rise to transnational spatial formations such as dense industry clusters, dispersed production niches or clearly defined enclaves for export processing. At the same time, they underscore the agency of the built environment and urban planning in shaping the geography of globalized production

How can the new climate agreement support robust national mitigation targets? : Opportunities up to Paris and beyond

This report is a synthesis of the research and re-evaluates the options previously considered in this project (Vieweg et al (2014)) in the light of the negotiation process up to today. The mitigation-related design elements considered are: Participation and differentiation of countries; Types of commitments, including also the compulsory character of the commitments and time aspects; Guidance on ambition of the commitments to assure adequacy of global and individual countries' efforts; Transparency of commitments

The influence of boric acid on improved persistent luminescence and thermal oxidation resistance of SrAl2O4:Eu2+

Persistent luminescence of SrAl2O4:Eu2+ has attracted considerable attention due to their high initial brightness, long-lasting time and excellent thermal stability. Here the influence of boric acid on the persistent luminescence and thermal oxidation resistance of SrAl2O4:Eu2+ was investigated in detail. Crystal structural analysis and scanning electron microscopy revealed that with the addition of boron, the unit cell volume decreased and the morphology of the particles became more irregular with sharp edges. Thermogravimetric analysis showed better thermal oxidation resistance accompanied by a change in oxygen vacancy concentration when boron acid is used. Photoluminescence spectra and afterglow decay curves confirm an improved afterglow performance for boron-added SrAl2O4:Eu2+. Thermoluminesence allowed monitoring the changes in the trap states due to the presence of B. Our results imply that the substantial improvement of afterglow performance and the thermal stability in SrAl2O4:Eu2+ can be attributed to the incorporation of boron into the aluminate network