Urban Artefacts: Types, Practices, Circulations

[i]Call for an interdisciplinary Seminar at the Institute of Geography[/i] University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland 14-15 June 2007 [b]Theme[/b] Globalization not only changes the values of people around the world, it also changes the very face of the cities we live in. Cities are composed of a tremendous amounts of what we call spatial artefacts, i.e. houses, but also furniture of public spaces, traffic infrastructure, gardens and parks. These spatial artefacts vary in form and function from place to place, they come in local, national and regional variants. These local variations are due to different architectural traditions but even more so, different local practices. People have to play baseball, before a baseball-stadium is invented and finally built. In architectural theory, such templates are known as building types, which we broaden for the purpose of the seminar, to spatial artefact-types. When such types travel and are inserted into other spatial contexts, they come (partially at least) with these practices attached. The workshop convenes a small group of 20-30 scholars and around 10 papers concentrating on one or several of the themes below from all relevant disciplines such as anthropology, architectural history and theory, geography, history, science studies and sociology. Costs for travels and accommodation may be covered by the organizers depending on replies from funding agencies. Abstracts (2’500 signs max.) are to be sent to Secretariat.Geographie@unine.ch until March the 1st 2007. Further information on the seminar: Michael Guggenheim: [url=migug@bluewin.ch]mailto:migug@bluewin.ch[/url] Ola Söderström: [url=ola.soderstrom@unine.ch]mailto:ola.soderstrom@unine.ch[/url]