The two-day festival Shared Cities: The Finale brought together urbanists, curators and theorists of architecture. It focused on the ways in which sharing of information, knowledge, governance, space and infrastructure has become the new imperative in architectural and cultural discourse.
A series of international panels attempted to draw new maps of Central Europe based on the Shared Cities Atlas. The aim was to contextualise the main topics of the Shared Cities project within a broader international discourse.
Panel 1
Shared Identities and Shared Contemporary Practices in Central Europe | Keynote by David Crowley
30 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the notion of sharing seems to be forgotten in Central Europe. Can it be revitalised? The participants of the panel discussed successful examples and showed how architecture can support this endeavour.
Panel 2
Digital Sharing & Data Commons | Keynote by Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer
Open access to information is a precondition for a knowledge sharing society. Even though vast amounts of data on cities are already being shared, there is still a gap between the “ability to access” and the “ability to understand”. How to promote efficient sharing of knowledge? How to ensure private data protection at the same time?
Panel 3
Activism and Politics of Urban Space in Central Europe | Keynote by Elke Krasny
In order to catalyse shared urban governance and decision-making, municipalities need to pay more attention to citizen participation. How to develop a city through activism? How to preserve urban spaces as spaces for negotiation? What are the strategies of resistance to political pressures?