For today and in the future Bernardo Secchi’s work and intuitions nourish the reflections and debate on city, architecture and society. The Study Day sponsored by the Doctorate School in Architecture, City and Design and of the Università IUAV of Venice is dedicated to Bernardo Secchi, in the school where he taught for many years becoming a reference for many student generations. The aim is not only to remember his work, but also to deepen and to elaborate, case by case, his hypothesis, themes and questions by constructing new occasions for debate and intellectual expansion.

Argument

The theme of the first Study Day focuses on utopia, a core theme for Bernardo Secchi. The choice is also related to the 500th anniversary of the publication of Utopia by Thomas More in Leuven.

Utopia is for Bernardo Secchi a specific mode, elaborated by the western culture, to imagine the future, with the city at its centre and a necessary component of design elaboration.

Beyond the corrective scope, urbanism reflects on the best of possible worlds, not in an abstract way but, in Bernardo Secchi’s words, through the immersion in a wide number of practices, those of the confuse and conscious modification of the city and territory. The importance of representation, its mediation-reconstruction in its various forms and the attention paid to images and collective unconscious have deeply characterized Bernardo Secchi’s research.

The point today is that society is radically changing again: the profound European crisis which European democracy, economy and society are experiencing, the need to accommodate new populations guided by different utopias and values will design a new city. The project of the city should reaffirm the role of a critical tool amongst actors, persons and places, a ground for representation and confrontation to finally contribute to a new “extreme effort in imagination”.

Submission guidelines

The Bernardo Secchi’s Study Day considers a specific session dedicated to the presentation and the discussion of unpublished work papers dealing with experiences, case studies and research.

Young researchers and academics are encouraged to join the invited guests by submitting paper proposals to the scientific committee. Please write to:

gdsbernardosecchi@gmail.com  (object: call_for_papers_2016_Surname)

The abstract should be of approximately 500 words, in  both  word and pdf format. It has to be sent by September 15th, 2016, and an acceptance confirmation will be given by September 25th. 2016.

The selected abstract will be required to be expanded into a final paper of approx. 2500 words  by November, 7th and according to the suggestions proposed by the Scientific Committee. Abstracts and papers can be in English or Italian.

Deadlines summary

• September 15th, 2016: abstract submission;

• September 25th, 2016: selection of the submitted abstract;
• November 7th, 2016: final paper submission.
• November 17th-18th: Study Day

Abstract guidelines

Each abstract should include the following information (font Times New Roman):

• full name (10pt)
• affiliation (10pt)
• email address (10pt, italic)
• title of the abstract (12pt, bold)
• abstract (around 500 words, 11pt)
• main bibliographic references ­ (using Harvard reference system, 10pt)

Promoters