Pop-up City | An ongoing research project in the city of Bologna
Searching for instant urbanity
In June 2013 City Space Architecture started to work on the research project "Pop-up City", in the city of Bologna, as a part of the international research project "Past Present and Future of Public Space", coordinated by our President Luisa Bravo, in collaboration with the photographer Fabio Mantovani.
Working on different locations, the "Pop-up City" project intends to highlight existing places with a potential for public life, looking for invisible dimensions of the public realm, searching for an "ordinary magic" along everyday streets, squares and neighborhoods, delivering new powerful images of the urban world.
We explore in particular those suburban places generally disconnected from the mental representation of the urban narrative plot of public spaces, made of beauty and fascination, with no identity and continuity with the historic environment. We are moving further from the European mental attitude that immediately links the concept of “public space” to the idea of a traditional designed square.
These places are part of the everyday existence, but common people are accustomed to experience them as fragments in a sort of jump-cut urbanism, affected by the use of cars. We pass through but we don’t see.
The Pop-up City project is trying to document what is now largely undocumented.
We are representing the city of Bologna, but actually the Pop-up City could be anywhere.
To read the curatorial statement, click on the image on top left.
10 photographs, as the first result of this work, were selected for a three-weeks public exhibition at the Museum of the History of Bologna at Palazzo Pepoli. On June 27, 2014 we celebrated the opening with academic scholars and professionals attending the "Past Present and Future of Public Space" International Conference on Art, Architecture and Urban Design (Bologna, June 25-27, 2014). Click on the images to open the gallery:
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Special thanks to: Elettra Bastoni, Raffaele Burzi, Danilo Calza, Camilla Carmagnini, Valentina Casalini, Silvia Di Vincenzo, Chiara Fassio, Simone Fenu, Andrea Ferrari, Valerio Francia, Sonia Gamberini, Simone Garagnani, Noa Matityahou, Antonella Tandi, Ivo Tudgiarov, Francesco Vaselli, the little Irene, staff of Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
Set-up curated by Valerio Francia.
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Credits:
"Pop-up City" exhibition, June 27 - July 20, 2014
Promoted by City Space Architecture, nonprofit cultural association
Photography: Fabio Mantovani
Curator: Luisa Bravo
Palazzo Pepoli, Museum of the History of Bologna, Torre del Tempo
Via Castiglione 8, Bologna
Thanks to Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna and Genus Bononiae, for the generous hospitality and for supporting our project.
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Here are two nice videos from the backstage of the "Pop-up City" project, at Piazza Liber Paradisus and at Giardino del Guasto. Enjoy!
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Pop-up City #12: Piazza Liber Paradisus, Bologna. We wanted to pay tribute to a famous photographer and to one of his pictures, try to guess who he is!
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Pop-up City #17: Giardino del Guasto, Bologna. The aerial shooting of the stage was made using a small drone carrying an high definition camera. The UAV is part of an ongoing research project developed by Simone Garagnani and codenamed Project Aurora.
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The "Pop-up City" project is still running, stay tuned for more!
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If you are interested in the "Pop-up City" project you can visit our office in Bologna, where all the original panels exhibited at the Museum of the History of Bologna are displayed.
