Over Hundred Years of Transformations in Six European Squares
Possibility Space: Over Hundred Years of Transformation in Six European Squares was a research project commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw for the 9th edition of the Warsaw Under Construction Architecture Festival, presented at the Palace of Culture in 2017.
This research and the resulting exhibition took a look at six public squares in different European cities (Athens, Barcelona, Milan, Rotterdam, Warsaw, and Tirana) and traced the various turbulent transformations they have undergone from their inception until today.
The debate concerning the construction, reconstruction, and preservation of public squares is becoming crucial, as these public spaces are susceptible to unlimited commercialization and are being used as showpieces by competing cities, which focus on communicating a message of success to investors and tourists, while often neglecting the needs of the citizens.
Starting from the premise that public squares are a spatial expression of the public realm and thus places of discourse and conflict, Amateur Cities explored the changes those squares have undergone as a reading of shifting social values and political interests. These squares may not be the most beautiful. They are not perfect and often unfinished. Their forms, however, are a record of different perspectives on public space over the past one hundred years of industrialization and urbanization in Europe, where new countries formed and new capitals were built. Through this overview, we reflected not just on the next step forward for Plac Defilad (Defilad Square) in Warsaw, but for public spaces in Europe at large.
Warsaw Under Construction 9 titled Plac Defilad: A Step Forward took place between 08.10 – 26.11.2017 at and around the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. The main exhibition of the festival shown at Galeria Studio featured numerous artworks and installations as well as results of four research teams that analyzed various aspects of the functioning of public spaces: Constellations of Coincidences by Fundacja Bęc Zmiana and Fundacja Puszka; Spectacle Square by Kuba Snopek, Tomasz Świetlik; Possibility Space by Amateur Cities; and Local Stewards by Artur Jerzy Filip.
