CfP: Mapping the Spaces of Modernist Cities within the Context of CIAM’s Athens Charter. Nova Gorica, 11-13 March 2020

Call for Papers: Mapping the Spaces of Modernist Cities within the Context of CIAM’s Athens Charter. Nova Gorica, 11-13 March 2020

More than a quarter of a century since the adoption of the Athens Charter, which established the principle of a functionalist town at the 4th CIAM (Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne) congress, presents a period long enough for a renewed critical evaluation of its principles and an analysis of the development of housing estates, which were founded on these principles. One such example is Nova Gorica, a town built after the Second World War next to the newly delineated border between the socialist Yugoslavia and the Republic of Italy. From today’s perspective, Nova Gorica represents a pendant to the town Gorica (Gorizia) in Italy, the former historical medieval and modern-day centre of the region, while it is also an excellent example for carrying out comparative scientific research on how these types of towns were created, how they developed in the following years, and how they adjusted to various economic, political and social circumstances.
The conference is interested to know the extent to which the original design of modernist towns and neighbourhoods was carried out and if/whether they are settled in the minds of general and professional public as an important urban heritage, worthy of being known and preserved.
What kind of dilemmas does monument protection encounter in the preservation and renovation of modernist towns? How much influence did new urban theories and the critique of functionalist planning have on their further development? To what extent did the advantages, as well as shortcomings and inconsistencies of this type of planning mark the establishment of new buildings in a town and influenced the placement of visual art in public space? We are interested in examining these cases on examples of newly established functionalist towns in other, European and non-European countries. Researchers in the fields of art and architectural history, architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, history, sociology and geography are invited to participate.
The full description of the possible topics of discussion is available here.
Presentations should be delivered in English and not exceed 20 minutes. An e-book with conference proceedings will be published prior to the conference.
Deadline for submission of application with short CV (in English, 100 words max.) and abstract (in English, 300 words max.): 15 October 2019.
Deadline for submission of articles (in English, 5000 words max.): 30th January 2020.
Please send your proposals to: uifs@zrc-sazu.si
The conference will be organised within the research project Mapping the Urban Spaces of Slovenian Cities from the Historical Perspective: Modernism in Nova Gorica and its Contexts (L6-8262, 1. 5. 2017 – 30. 4. 2020), which is financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Municipality Nova Gorica.
For more information on the project see www.novagoricaart.si

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