Thank You & Goodbye, 12 July 2011
All good things come to an end – or at least they go into hibernation, as is the case the Urbis Research Forum. After two years of discussions, panels, walks and talks, the Urbis Research Forum is winding down. Although our last session “Faith in the City” was held on 22 June, 2011, the Urbis Research Forum archive will still be available to view and download on our website (www.urbisresearchforum.org.uk). This includes editions of the Urbis Research Forum Review, our selection of podcasts and the details of each session we’ve held.
The Urbis Research Forum began in the summer of 2009 at the Urbis centre. Its aim was to provide a space were academics, professionals and the public could meet to discuss urban culture and city life. We’ve had architects, activists, geographers, police, philosophers, bar owners, community groups and artists (among others) participate. It’s been fascinating, involving, sometimes heated and always enjoyable.
The Urbis Research Forum was non-profit and was only made possible by those willing to volunteer their time to offer support, advice and to help organise sessions. Julian Holloway, Andrew Karvonen and Mark Jayne are due massive thanks for their continued input. A thank-you also goes to Joanna Hodge and Leif Jerram for organising sessions and to Andy Brydon at Curated Place (www.curatedplace.com) for producing our podcasts. The mightily talented graphic designers Kirstin McKechnie (www.kirstinmckechnie.com) and Liam Palmer (www.liampalmer.co.uk) created our logos and banners. In 2010 the Urbis centre closed and the Urbis Research Forum relocated to theUniversity of Manchester. We’d like to thank Therese Lawlor-Wright for making this transition possible.
We’d also like to thank everyone who participated and everyone who came along to the sessions, whether at Urbis or the University of Manchester. It’s been a good two years and we hope we’ve offered something both interesting and valuable. As the website and archive will be available, we’re not completely closing shop and there’s always the possibility for more activity in the future. In the meantime it’s worth checking out other urban related research projects in Manchester, including the Cities@Manchester initiative at theUniversity of Manchester.
Faith and the City
Wednesday, 22 June, 2011, 6.00 pm
D07, Renold Building, University of Manchester
Atrincham Street (Off Sackville Street)
Free, No Booking Required
Historically, religion has strongly influenced the evolution of
cities, through architecture, politics, community cohesion, and so
on. Faith-based organisations play a less prominent role in cities
today but they continue to shape the various debates on cultural
identity, social practice, and morality. In view of this, our
roundtable discussion asks the question “what role does faith
play in shaping the contemporary city?”.
Panellists:
Dwight Swanson (Nazarene Theological College)
Terry Binnington (St. Peter’s House)
Chris Baker (University of Chester)
The session is chaired by Andrew Karvonen
It’s been a while since the last post. That’s usually a good opportunity to highlight some interesting blog on urbansim and city life that are out there.
Firstly, there’s the Digital Urban site authored by Dr. Andrew Hudson-Smith. This has a range of interesting links – from different visualisations of urban networks, to how web 2.0 is being implemented in offices and galleries. Also check out the Tales of Things section – a project allowing people to ‘tag’ objects with their own stories, thoughts and images. So for instance, when buying an item at a charity shop, you can access its history and personal stories attached to it.
For something more local, there is the Cities@Manchester blog focusing on urban research at the University of Mancehster.
And also from Manchester is Get Over It!, a symposium and site initiated by students from the Manchester School of Architecture.
Friedrich Engels celebrated his 190th birthday on 28 November, 2010, and his
work in philosophy and political theory continue to be widely read and
highly influential. Manchester served as inspiration for some of Engels’
writings on child labour, unsanitary conditions and working class life in
the 19th century. In this panel discussion, we examined how the city
is reflected in Engels’ work and how his Mancunian insights continue to
be relevant in the 21st century.
The session was hosted by Dr. Andy Karvonen.
Panellists:
Steve Hanson (Hereford College of Arts)
Mark Rainey (University of Manchester)
The Podcast can be downloaded by following this link.
Thanks to CuratedPlace for producing the Podcast.
Youth and Architecture
Tuesday, 22 February, 2011, 6.00 pm
D07, Renold Building, University of Manchester
Atrincham Street (Off Sackville Street)
Free, No Booking Required
Public engagement is increasingly important in fields including
architecture and design. The Youth and Architecture session of the
Urbis Research Forum brings together practitioners and professionals
who have worked with young people to pursue their interests in
Architecture. With particular focus on the Architecture For Everyone
programme, this roundtable discussion will explore issues including the
impact of youth engagement and the barriers that exist.
Panellists:
Veda Harrison (Stephen Lawrence Trust)
Jo Harrop (Places Matter!)
Bob O’Neill (O’Neil Associates)
The National Film Board of Canada hosts a fantastic interactive website showcasing films they have produced. Documentaries, animation, dramas and trailers – a Web 2.0 repository of Canadian culture.
One featured piece is an interactive documentary about Pine Point, a former mining town in the North West Territories. It was a planned town, functional by 1963 and existing until the mine closed in 1988. Then, instead of attempting any sort of regeneration, the town was abandoned. And demolished. “In the end, it was left standing just long enough for a single generation to run through it”, as the documentary says. The documentary is produced by Mike Simmons who, as the documentary claims, never lived there but visited once to play a hockey game when he was 9.
All that’s left of the town is its few physical traces and a website, Pinepoint Revisited. And this documentary. Both are a sort of digital reassembly of an erased town.
The latest podcast from the Urbis Research Forum is now available to download.
Mark Jayne (University of Manchester), Sarah Pickstone (City Centre Safe), Dmitri Brady (Methodist International House) and Haydn Pope (Manchester Pub and Club Network) discuss the benefits and drawbacks of alcohol use in the city. The session was chaired by Mark Rainey.
Thanks to CuratedPlace for producing the podcast.
Back in 2005, there was controversy when Manchester City Council paid for ‘street art’ to advertise a local archaeological dig in Northenden. The graffiti was located under the M60 overpass with “Dig Manchester” in bold letters. The problem was that the street art broke the council’s own zero-tolerance policy on graffiti and the council was forced to remove its own work. Unsurprisingly, this upset a lot of local residents who quite liked the graffiti, including the local vicar.
There are likely to be countless similar stories from cities across the world. The vexing question of what is good graffiti and what is vandalism often pits bureaucrats against street artists with local residents caught somewhere in the middle.
Recently, on his blog, Scott Burnham proposed the radical idea of city clean-up crews being re-purposed as curator’s of the city’s street art. It’s an interesting idea, and is certainly a way to avoid the ‘old skool’ debate of what graffiti is, or isn’t.
Architecture Walk Hiroshima have just released their guidebook to the city’s architecture. And it’s available to download here for free.
It’s got architectural highlights -the post a-bomb, the modern, the obvious, the less well known and the interesting, as well as maps and tips on getting around and using Hiroshima.
Also included are some suggestions on how to best view and photograph buildings as well as some very Japanese instructions on “etiquette while observing”.
And if you’re in Hiroshima over the festive season stop by Architecture Walk Hiroshima’s photography exhibition at Gallery G. The exhibition runs from 28 December, 2010 – 3 January, 2011.
The Whitworth Art Gallery’s Adult Programme is teaming up with the photography collective Meatyard Arts for an evening of photography, projections and music. Friday December 17, 7.30 pm
