Past events

What we've done so far
 

TOUR OF CUBA
& HAVANA HARBOUR CHARRETTE

9 - 15 March 2008 - Havana, Cienfugos, Trinidad, Cuba

The Norwegian chapter of C.E.U. - Council for European Urbanism - held a one week tour of three Cuban cities, Havana, Cienfuegos and Trinidad from 1 - 8 March 2008, followed by a one week charrette in Old Havana and the neighboring town of Casablanca, from 9 - 15 March 2008. Repeating the success of our 2007 event, the one week 2008 Tour included an introduction to the history of urbanism and architecture in Havana, a seminar on the regeneration of Old Havana, and a 3 day bus tour to two smaller historic towns, Trinidad and Cienfuegos.

Visit the Cuba 2008 Tour and Charrete web page for more information.

C.E.U. LISBON SYMPOSIUM:
WATERFRONT DEVELOPMENTS 2007

Report from C.E.U.'s 2007 Symposium
7 December 2007, Lisbon, Portugal

C.E.U. organised a symposium on sustainable development for waterfronts in Lisbon in December 2007. The event was a collaboration with Gonçalo Cornelio da Silva of C.E.U. Portugal in partnership with the Academy of Urbanism.

Waterfront developments have come to European attention not only through excessively eccentric marinas and holiday resorts, but painfully through recent flooding disasters in the UK, Germany and Eastern Europe, as well as the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Both contemporary climate change issues and the pressing need for affordable and sustainable housing challenge destructive development patterns from the post-war period. Waterfront locations are among the most fragile and sensitive, as well as the most complex, vital and spectacular opportunities for a sustainable contemporary urbanism and require new approaches to planning and governance.

Visit the Lisbon symposium web site and the Lisbon web page for more information.

C.E.U. CUBA TOUR &
INTERNATIONAL CHARRETTE 2007

24 February - 3 March 2007, La Habana, Cuba

The Cuban and Norwegian chapters of C.E.U. - Council for European Urbanism held a one week  tour of three Cuban cities and UNESCO World Heritage Sites; Havana, Cienfuegos and Trinidad, from 24 February - 3 March 2007. The expert guide was Prof. Julio Cesar Perez, Faculty of Architecture, Havana. Prof. Perez has been a speaker at several INTBAU and C.E.U. conferences. He is a Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design 2001-2002 and has lectured widely in the US and Europe about Cuban architecture.

The tour was  followed by a one week design workshop (charrette) in Old Havana and the neighbouring town of Casablanca, 4 – 10 March 2007, to develop ideas for the development of the waterfront sector of the Old Havana Harbor.

SUSTAINABLE URBANISM:
PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS 2006

Report from C.E.U.'s Second International Congress
9 - 10 November 2006, Leeds, UK

The Second C.E.U. World Congress took as its theme sustainable urbanism. It looked at sustainable urbanism at a number of scales and from a number of perspectives: teasing out environmental, economic and social aspects then knitting them back together to consider the kinds of holistic approaches needed to make Europe’s cities, towns, villages and countryside more sustainable in future. There were some great examples from practice as well as some terrific ideas from theory, presented over two intensive days of discussion and debate among a wide range of participants from across Europe and beyond.
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THE EUROPEAN CITY, 30 YEARS:
REVIEW & PROSPECTS 2005

Report from C.E.U.'s First International Congress
9 - 10 September 2005, Berlin, Germany

You can now download the Programme, Report, and Berlin Declaration from the congress.

You can also download a transcript of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's speech at the CEU congress in Berlin on 10 September 2005 or visit the ODPM website. Or download a video of the press conference.

C.E.U. EXHIBITION ONLINE:
EUROPEAN URBANISM 1995 - 2005

A public realm exhibition available for download

CEU has produced an exhibition of European urban development projects from the last 10 years. We have now also made the exhibition available online here.

Included are projects from Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands and United Kingdom. The exhibition was presented at the Congress for New Urbanism in Pasadena, California June 2005, and the CEU International Congress in Berlin September 2005.

Please contact the curator, CEU Norway's Audun Engh, on audun.engh@gmail.com if you have proposals for additional projects, or new presentatons of the exhibition.

C.E.U. DEUTSCHLAND
FIRST SYMPOSIUM, 2004

Report from C.E.U. Deutschland's First Congress
2 - 4 September 2004, Görlitz, Germany and Zgorzelec, Poland

The mayor of Görlitz, Stefan Holthaus, opened the seminar with an introduction on the background of this unique city lying on the German-Polish border, and the problems of its shrinking population. Today European cities have a great challenge to meet, the end of the industrial age.

Harald Bodenschatz hold the opening speech of CEU-D. He focused on the necessity of the 'Stadtumbau', the reconstruction of our cities. The solution to the problem of urban sprawl is the return to traditional city planning. But he emphasized that we should not blindly copy our old towns, but do so critically. He pointed out the importance of seeing town planning and architecture as two separate issues, and emphasized that both traditional and modernist architecture can have its place in a traditional town planning.
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THE TEACHING OF ARCHITECTURE
IN THE AGE OF GLOBALISATION, 2004

Report by Susan Parham from the C.E.U. - INTBAU Conference
4 - 9 May 2004, Viseu, Portugal

Globalisation is a long standing and well established process, as Elizabeth Plater Zyberk and Matthew Hardy pointed out. It would be presumptuous to assume this is purely a 20th and 21st Century phenomenon. As Javier Cenicacelaya and others noted, this is the age of urbanisation with an astonishingly rapid increase in urban populations across Europe. It is thus an especially critical time to work on the shaping of the urban space that is so quickly expanding.

Claudio D'Amato Guerrieri made a very useful contribution in linking architecture to this transforming urban condition. Matthew Hardy and Doug Kelbaugh helped to tease out some of the economic and social implications for urbanisation of greater connectivity among cities, elites and capital while populations sometimes languish; stranded in less mobile circumstances. INTBAU Secretary Matthew Hardy suggested that chief among concerns about globalisation is the loss of local identity that can result. This loss challenges local economies and social life as well as built form traditions.
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C.E.U. LAUNCH, STOCKHOLM, 2003

Report from C.E.U.'s Founding Event
6 November 2003, Järla Sjö, Stockholm, Sweden

Some 60 people from a wide range of backgrounds met in Stockholm in 2003 to sign The Charter of Stockholm as the grounding document of the Council for European Urbanism. The Council was created in Bruges early in 2003 and is a network of members whose mission is dedicated to the well being of present and future generations through the advancement of humane cities, towns, villages and countryside in Europe.

The Council set as its objectives that cities, towns and villages should have mixed uses and social diversity. They should make efficient and sustainable use of buildings, land and other resources. The Charter signers agreed that cities "should be safe and accessible by foot, bicycle, car and public transport. They should have clearly defined boundaries at all stages of development; have streets and spaces formed by an architecture that respects local history, climate, landscape and geography; and have a variety that allows for the evolution of society, function and design".
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Many other events about urbanism have been held since CEU was formed. We list a few...
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