Open cityA crooked, open, modest city

Judgements that the cité has ‘failed’ to open up are thus Janus-faced: one side of the coin shows angry populist prejudice, but on the other face can appear the self-satisfied...

Open cityOpening up the city, rethinking the city

The change in era we’re currently experiencing is altering many of the values, conceptual schemes and balances upon which post-war Europe was built. The “Ciutat Oberta” (Open City)...

SHANGHAI, CHINA
Open cityFlexible Urbanisms

Much of the urban design applied around the world follows the technocratic model of the Athens Charter. This is a homogenous, one-size-fits-all model that provides simple solutions to...

Open cityBuilding Harmonies: Toward a Choral Architect

Although people know what they need and want, yet architecture spins into navel-gazing and drifts farther and farther from the possibility of substantive contribution to the communities...

Cover of the book Les arts aplicades a Barcelona by Francesc Fontbona
The transformative power of the decorative arts

Forged iron, ceramics, wood, glass, pavement, coats of arms, clocks, bells… Art historian Francesc Fontbona edited Les arts aplicades a Barcelona (The Applied Arts in Barcelona...

Open cityIs there a women’s city?

From a feminist perspective, cities need to respond to the human need to inhabit, not to accumulate wealth. They need to allow people to live where they were born and to access the type...

Open cityHow much urban democracy can global capitalism stand?

Three decades of neoliberal deregulation from the wild side of the market have impeded and disfigured opportunities for urban democracy and have seized the city from its people. In spite...

An elderly couple sitting on a bench looking at a pond
Open city‘Ligatios’ and ‘obligatios’: ties in an open city

The space we inhabit, the environment that surrounds us, shapes our behaviour and everything about us: our character, our ethos. That’s what ethics is about. It isn’t just about...

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