On 26 April 2011, the Budapest city council had accepted the changes proposed by Mayor István Tarlós about the renaming of 256 squares and streets. This was the third great wave of renaming since 1989. A similar use of the public space can be observed in other former socialist capitals as well. The various changes and processes can be registered in dealing with the urban public space: There are on the one hand, new forms of urban interventions, thanks to the internet (such as fl ash mobs, critical mass, graffi ti, etc.) which, cross-linked with civil society activities, often point to new claims of various agents on urban public space. On the other hand, the control of urban public space became centralized and often derived from former socialist „trained“ understanding of public space. In this context, the workshop discusses the following questions: How does the understanding of urban public space developed in the post-socialist cities? Is the urban public space in post-socialist cities equated with that understanding of public, which exists in Western European cities? How did the urban public space of the socialist cities since 1989 change? At what level and in what forms and formats can the process of transformation of the former socialist countries be held and captured in the urban public space? Are there similarities in the transformation processes?

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

TUESDAY, 3 MARCH 2015

  • 17-18.30 Registration at Hotel (tba)

  • 18.30 Conference Dinner at Restaurant in Marburg

WEDNESDAY, 4 MARCH 2015

  • 9.30 – 9.45 Welcome
  • Panel I. Transformation and Landscape
  • Chair: Eszter Gantner (Marburg)
  • 9.45 – 10.15 Judit Bodnár (Budapest): Input Lecture: Moscow Square Reloaded: Transformation in and of Public Space
  • 10.15 – 10.45 Discussion
  • 10.45 – 11.00 Coff e Break
  • 11.00 – 11.20 Juli Székely (Budapest): From Heroes’ Squares to the “Place of Heroes” The renewed memorial landscape of Budapest
  • 11.20 – 11.40 Tatjana Hofmann (Zürich): Erzählungen des Urbanen. Literatur als Medium städtischer Transformation
  • 11.40 – 12.00 Discussion
  • 12.00 – 12.30 Werkstatt-Bericht
  • Chair: Christian Lotz (Marburg)
  • Thomas Klemm (Leipzig): Repräsentationsarchitektur im postsozialistischen Europa –Werkstattbericht zu einem Projekt mit wissenschaftlichen und künstlerischen Zugängen
  • 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch
  • Panel II. The Heritage of Transformation
  • Chair: Ayse Nur Erek (Istanbul)
  • 13.30 – 14.00 Thomas Bohn (Gießen): Input Lecture: The Heritage of the Socialist City. Paradigm shifts of urbanisation in Eastern Europe
  • 14.00 - 14.30 Discussion
  • 14.30 – 14.50 Regina Bittner (Dessau): Beyond the European piazza: Public scenes in central European cities
  • 14.50 – 15.10 Natalia Samutina/Oksana Zaporozhets (Moscow): Parks as reinvented public arenas in Post-Socialist cities: the case of Tsaritsyno Moscow
  • 15.10 – 15.30 Discussion
  • 15.30 – 15.50 Coffee Break
  • Panel III. Public Space and Intervention
  • Chair: Ina Alber (Marburg/Göttingen)
  • 15.50 - 16.10 Oleg Pachenkov (St. Petersburg): What’s wrong with public space in post-socialist cities?
  • 16.10 – 16.30 Lilia Voronkova (St. Petersburg): Don’t step on the grass! Life in public spaces: between business and state (The сase of St. Petersburg)
  • 16.30 - 17.15 Closing Discussion and Summary Admission to the conference is free of charge.

Please register until 25 February 2015 at Ina Alber via e-mail ina.alber[at]herder-institut.de