politics

Article: Critical Imagination

The Racism Onion

The racism onion has discrimination at its core.  You do not need to be American to be moved by the seismic events that shook cities and mobilized people around the world in response to police brutality against Black people in the US in the summer of 2020. However, if you have ever been subjected to […]
Article: Critical Imagination
Military check point in the street, Kimihurura Neighborhood, Kigali, 2017.

Contemporary Urban Paranoia

Why We Should Look into the Surveillance Camera The permanent spatial state of exception in the urban environment is a much-discussed topic in postmodern discourse, yet a critical re-assessment of the contemporary situation is needed. The global proliferation of urban enclaves, and in consequence their ghettoization, indicates an urgent need for social sustainability.1 There is […]
Article: Critical Imagination

From Exclusion to Autonomy: Publishing as a Spatializing Act

Why we should publish even more. The current and potential role of publishingPublishing, understood as a process of ‘making a public’1 that informs a ‘capacity to act’,2 has the potential to develop as an institutionalizing means, an interface for connecting people with different backgrounds, and as a way to relate with each other. It can […]
Article: Critical Imagination

Bersih 4: Street Protests as a Form of City Making

Cities and architecture are not devoid of politics. Produced and governed through political processes, they often become the canvas upon which power is mapped. But this can also backfire. A square, designed to provide the setting for showing off the architectural grandeur of an institution, often becomes the very place where the populace gathers to […]
Article: Critical Imagination

Lost Cities and Losing oneself in the City

What if we gave up the wish to contain cities and citizenships? The ambition to welcome newcomers within spaces of hos(ti)pitality1 such as camps, asylum and detention centres is not only an assured formula for segregation, but it fuels fear amongst localities and (trans)national imaginaries.2 It fundamentally conditions citizenship, (urban) identity and human relationship to […]
Article: Critical Imagination

Bottom-up Turned Inside Out

Decision-making in urban development today isn’t defined by the needs of empowered citizens but by two mutually supporting mechanisms: big corporate interests and retreating governments. Rather than a political vision of how life in cities ought to be organized, contemporary planning resembles a managerial task that coordinates flows of money, materials, people, and information. Paradoxically, […]
Article: Critical Imagination

The Other City Map

Urban spaces are usually identified through the borders and boundaries drawn on a geographical map. City lines, streets and corridors are often worked out in great detail. Today, however, another city has emerged, which cannot be detected directly from physical characteristics, with borders that are no longer easy to identify – a computational city. Cities […]
Article: Wishful Thinking

Housing is a Human Right

Following this year’s Habitat III, it is worth remembering that “Adequate shelter for all” was one of the two key issues of the previous Habitat conference in Istanbul. Ten years later we are looking at an even deeper housing crisis that does not only embrace homelessness and growing population of urban slums, but also growing […]
Article: Critical Imagination

Call to Action – On How the Political Potential of Architecture can Give Power to a Marginalized Community

With the unstable political ground in recent years, the subject of architecture in the political setting has suddenly gained new interest worldwide. As a response to the post-2008 financial recession and its inevitable repercussions within the built environment, the prevailing doctrine of corporate ‘iconic’ architectural production is now being greatly challenged by the daring alternatives […]
Article: Critical Imagination

Urban Branding and the Violent Ghosts of the Politics of Representation

City branding is a relevant issue among urban policy makers. In a nutshell, it refers to the promotion of the image of a city, mostly in order to attract tourists, investments, mega-events, such as the Olympic games, and new wealthy residents, such as the members of the so-called ‘creative class’.1 This commentary will summarize some […]