reCITYing. Reactivating Unused Urban Spaces Through Architecture and Arts
reCITYing. Reactivating Unused Urban Spaces Through Architecture and Arts 2024–2028
We are proud to announce the launch of the new European cooperation project reCITYing. Reactivating Unused Urban Spaces Through Architecture and Arts. reCITYing is co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. Started in January of this year, the project will unfold throughout the next 48 months with an aim to promote the short-term action to leverage social participation and co-creation for the regeneration of unused, closed or private urban spaces and buildings into artistic laboratories as new cultural incubators, open to the city.
For philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, appropriation is a function of lived space, where the imagination seeks to change it. Lived space is a place of passion where the user/community encounters resistance, which inevitably involves conscious action and struggle. How then can temporary reuse practices foster processes of urban reappropriation and regeneration strategies of residual spaces in the city? Against this backdrop, reCITYing has the ambition to create a platform for knowledge creation and exchange of experiences on temporary reuse practices to define co-creation of spaces in a European perspective and is aimed at young creatives and professionals from the fields of architecture, design and arts, policy makers and local social enterprises.
The general structure of the project is based on a recursive set of thematic actions (Creative Workshops, Space Installations, Itinerant Space Performances), enriched by moments of capacity building and audience engagement leveraging the role of architecture as a stage for arts and co-creation with the aim of improving social inclusion and accessibility to neglected spaces in the city.
The project fosters practical knowledge and professional skills in recycling architecture in 4 partner and 4 host cities (Genoa-Lublin, Barcelona-Umea, Hannover-Tallin, Maribor-Timișoara) by consolidating a common logical framework and a roadmap for Temporary Reuse approach.
reCITYing partner consortium consists of the project leader Università degli studi di Genova (Italy) and Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (Spain), Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany), UGM | Maribor Art Gallery (Slovenia) and Association Champ Libre (France).
reCITYing project will also establish a bionomy dialogue between: Genoa–Lublin (UNIGE, Genoa Municipality, Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti + Lublin Municipality, TU Lublin); Barcelona–Umea (IAAC Barcelona, Parc Agrari del Baix de Llobregat + Umea Municipality); Hannover–Tallinn (Hannover MusikZentrum + Tallinn Academy of Arts); Maribor–Timișoara (UGM | Maribor Art Gallery + Municipality of Maribor, BETA Timișoara Architecture Biennale) and Montpellier as international multiplier event (Champ Libre, ENSAM Montpellier + Montpellier Municipality, AMO Architecture Maître d’Ouvrage Med Occitanie).
Co-funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.
