[URBANTH-L]FUNDING: EU Urbanism Doctoral Fellowships

[Angela Jancius]

EU Urbanism Fellowships

During the academic year 2006/2007, the postgraduate
program of the Bauhaus Dessau, titled EU Urbanism,
will examine the effects of the expansion of the
European Union on cities and urban culture in Eastern
Europe. The creation of a unified European space takes
place over a long-term process of adjustment to legal,
institutional and economic regulations. Using the
example of selected places such as Sibiu/Hermannstadt
and Zgorgelec/Görlitz in the new Europe, the extent
to which these cities are testing grounds for the
diversification of the model of the "European city"
is to be investigated.

The two-part Bauhaus Kolleg program consists of an
orientation phase, which concentrates more on theory
and analysis, and a project phase that focuses
stronger on developing working methods and strategies.
An exhibition and the production of a book are
scheduled to conclude the Kolleg year.

The Bauhaus Kolleg is now accepting applications for
the upcoming program. Graduates with a strong academic
background in the fields of art, architecture, urban
planning, cultural theory, design, media studies,
philosophy and other related disciplines are invited
to apply. The application deadline is July 31, 2006.

We would much appreciate if you passed this
information on to highly motivated and skilled
individuals, who would like to work together with us
for one year in the traditional Bauhaus building.

For further details about the program and the
application form go to www.bauhaus-dessau.de. Click on
the link ‘Kolleg.’ Or visit www.eu-urbanism.de.

Best regards,


Ina Goegel
Program Manager



EU urbanism

The process of expansion of the European Union has had
a huge effect on cities and regions in Eastern Europe.

The "Return to Europe" was associated with
historically-founded national concepts of identity,
and therefore also signified reaching the "normality"
of European nation states. Europeisation also
supported, as a cultural code, the reform movement in
Eastern Europe before and after the fall of the iron
curtain. Affiliation to "Central Europe" also still
affects negotiations on specific moral concepts and
cultural models. Europeisation, however, is far less a
process of reversion than one of the reorientation of
many East German cities in a new geographical context.
The creation of a unified European space takes place
over a long term process of adjustment to legal,
institutional and economic regulations.  In the
context of this development, it must be questioned
whether and when this model of the "European city"
will be extended to Eastern Europe. Despite the proven
adaptability of this urban model over centuries,
certain characteristics can be ascertained, which
define it as: a place for the objectification of
history, a place for emancipation and a place for a
particular way of living that represents a specific
physical design and is regulated by the welfare state
(Siebel 2004).

Using the example of selected places and issues in the
new Europe, the extent to which these cities are
testing grounds for the diversification of the model
of the "European city" is to be examined. A second
issue is whether, in the face of the fundamental
upheaval inherent to the transformation brought about
by global structural change, a fundamentally new
definition of the concept and substance of the
European city must be found.

1) Cultural capitals – places for urban living?

The theme "European cultural capital" is to examine
the approach to the historic aspects of a city, since
the evaluation of history and local tradition plays a
central role in the development of cultural capitals.

Inquiry must, moreover, be directed towards
ascertaining which concepts of urban living and
culture take hold here, and to what extent these are
integrated with the activities of local parties and
the urban civil society.

Within the context of processes in cultural capitals,
the aim is not only to try to reinterpret and imagine
the history and architecture of each of the cities in
a European way; it frequently also includes building
and art projects that focus on international or
transnational developments.

Often, images of a cosmopolitan European metropolis
are conceived that are rarely backed up by the urban
daily practices of the residents.

Using the examples of the cultural capital 2007
Sibiu/Hermannstadt, and the dual city
Görlitz/Zgorzelec, which is still in the process of
acceptance as a "cultural capital," the programme will
approach the following  questions:

What do "cultural capitals" have to contribute as an
instrument of "Europeanisation in the 21st century"?
Which concepts and beliefs of European culture and
ways of life are communicated in the process? Are
programmes in cultural capitals accompanied by a
pressure to homogenise with Europe or, respectively,
to what extent do they contribute to the
diversification of a multi-ethnic European urban
culture?

2) EU standardised cities

The second programme will examine the institutional
and spatial effects the assimilation of the cities of
the new member countries has on the policies of the
European Union. Acceding countries, whether already
full members or still in negotiation, mean for the
process of integration above all a readjustment of
society and space, of infrastructure and economy in
keeping with the programmes and policies of the EU.
Conforming to the economic policies of the EU
requires, for example, the privatisation of state
property, which in the context of transformation has
usually come into the possession of international
financers. What is the case for municipal self
government when the scope of municipal authorities is
becoming more and more limited? Inquiry must,
furthermore, examine the European model of governance
with regard to collective welfare institutions in
Eastern European cities when one condition of
integration into the EU was the dismantling of
existing welfare state institutions. Another issue is
whether other models of the formation of institutions
can be detected that first arose within the context of
transformation.

In addition, the influence the EU’s large-scale
infrastructure programmes has on each of the cities
and their spatial reorganisation must be examined:
Do they result in suburbanisation processes or in new
centralisations?

What kinds of spatial differentiations do these bring?
The question is, one could say, one of how much
spatial fragmentation the "European city" can take.

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