Let's meet at the park
The value of public space
Squares, streets, markets, parks, gardens. Public spaces are where we get together, connect, come together, protest, celebrate. Public spaces connect us with realities that go beyond the four walls of our home. Here is a list of some of the articles, conferences, interviews and video essays in which the CCCB has looked at the value of cities and public space.
Richard Sennett and Carles Muro
Narratives of the Homo Faber
In this conversation, Richard Sennett addressed different aspects of cities, urbanism and inequalities. He analysed the impact of global capitalism on the homogenisation of cities and new technologies as one more way of standardising life. He also talked about coexistence and the relationship ...
Xavier Antich i Joan Margarit
In Common. The city
A dialogue between Xavier Antich, philosopher and lecturer in History of Aesthetic Ideas at the University of Girona, and Joan Margarit, poet and architect. Presented by Joan Nogué, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Girona and of the Observatori del Paisatge de Catalunya ...
Masha Gessen: "You certainly can't have democracy without public space"
The Russian-American writer defends the fundamental role of public space when it comes to making democracy and politics possible. This interview is part of the series "Shared Spaces", an idea of the Public Space project. International thinkers talk about their favorite ...
Francesco Tonucci: "The space for true play is not one of swings and slides monitored by adults"
Francesco Tonucci is a researcher at the Institute for Cognition Science and Technology of the Italian National Center for Research (CNR) in Rome. His professional activity has been aimed at studying the thinking and behaviour of children, in family, school and city environments. In this interview, ...
Playing in the street
Soy Cámara online
The zoning in urban space of play, representing its segregation from the bustle and chaos of the city, destroys the very nature of play and what it has always been: learning to live together and relate with the world.
Reclaiming the City through Play
Cristina Sáez
By the year 2050, an estimated three of every four people on the planet are expected to live in cities. Experts claim that only an appropriate use of technology will make it possible for these to be sustainable and ensure there are sufficient resources for everybody. What they mean by this ...
Michael Kimmelman
The Cities We Need
With the threat of climate change and the exponential growth of cities, Michael Kimmelman, art and architecture critic of The New York Times, calls for a twenty-first-century model of the city that is more responsible with its environs and towards the people who inhabit it, using examples of good and bad urban planning practices.
Hakan Günday: “Public space means knocking at your neighbour’s door and asking who he is”
The Turkish writer Hakan Günday says that thanks to the new technologies, which give us enormous amounts of information, we have the sensation that we know a lot and that, through the social networks, we also know a lot of people. Although we have never spoken with our neighbours, we know ...
The invisible city
Soy cámara online
This episode of Soy Cámara pays a humble tribute to Italo Calvino’s invisible cities. The excerpts of cities chosen for this narrative show the validity of Calvino’s original discourse and are applicable to any cosmopolitan city today. Screenplay and direction: Jos&eacu...
The City and its Small Data
César Reyes Nájera | dpr-barcelona
The city is a dynamic system that is based on a physical foundation and activated by the interactions that take place among its inhabitants. Thanks to these interactions, the real ‘shape’ of a city transcends its mere physical configuration. In just a few decades, the Internet has [...]