Istanbul and the Grassroots - Open Lecture

text from www.mah.se

By Johanna Svensson 


Martin Schwegmann, Architect and Urban Designer from Humboldt University, Berlin will hold an open lecture with the title "Istanbul and the Grassroots – Civil Society Organizations, Local Politics and Urban Transformation" at Malmö University next Friday.

What is your lecture about? - The lecture will be about new and newly organized civil society actors in Istanbul reacting towards current trends in urban development. Istanbul is undergoing, like many other big cities in Turkey, a major paradigm shift towards a neoliberal urban agenda since the early 2000s. Rightful and de facto owners are getting expropriated, resettled and their houses demolished because of new sources of capital are trying to find ways into the often ambiguous land market in Istanbul. In this climate local and national active civil society groups emerge and struggle to find a common voice against the unjust developments.

Who should listen to the lecture in your opinion? - Everybody who is interested in examples of neoliberal urbanization patterns and civil society mobilization. It is probably not possible to “learn” something directly for Malmoe or northern Europe. Much more the lecture will give an idea of the urban background/experience of some migrant populations and also demystify informal urban development/Gecekondu to a certain extend.

Picture by Martin Schwegmann, taken on the Asian side of the Bosphorus in Istanbul in the district of Maltepe, from the neighborhood of Basibüyük towards Gülsuyu/Gülensu showing characteristic phases of urban development in Istanbul. 

You have founded a network called "Urban passion", what is it and why did you start it? -I founded Urban passion in order to find a way to frame my activities in the realm of urbanism together with friends and partners. I see Urban passion as a way of connecting the often diverse activities connected to the city. At the same time Urban passion is a platform and an open network for short termed and non bureaucratic cooperation. Urban passion also is a source of inspiration and discussion for my personal practice.

Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Urban Development in Berlin

Field trip of the Department of Urban Studies, University of Malmö, 8th -10th of may 2010

Urban Passion organized a three day field trip for about 40 scholars and practitioners from Sweden and Denmark. It consisted of three guided tours with expert tour guides, two workshops with Berlin based practitioners and researchers (The Hub Berlin; Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies at Humboldt University). The trip was initiated and coordinated by Frederick Björn, researcher and teacher at Malmö University, Department of Urban Studies.

Subject:

Is it possible to reach urban sustainability through social innovation by the means of social entrepreneurship!?

This question was the starting point of the excursion. Because social entrepreneurship in the classical sense does not play a big role in urban development in Berlin in our opinion, we didn´t try to look for projects, places and actors which would call themselves social entrepreneurs in the first place. We rather wanted to show the group an
contested urban area, Media Spree, to start with. The idea was to look at a wide spectrum of actors, both institutional and non institutional, in order to see their relevance in the framework of sustainable urban development and social innovation.  The experiences and the expectancies where cross checked and broadened to other parts of Berlin in the workshops and additional field trips later on.

Social Entrepreneurship proved to be a little applied term in Berlin. The relevance in the Scandinavian context seems to be much higher and the involvement of institutional actors within button up urban development through small cultural and socially active actors (entrepreneurs) is much bigger. Yet the drive of button up actors in urban development in Berlin is still very strong, even though and maybe even because there is not really a comprehensive scheme for sustainable urban development integrating bottom up movements.  

Program:

Day 1:

- 3 City walks through the media spree area. 

- Workshop with Jürgen Breiter (The Hub Berlin, Wedding 

   Windows)  about the concept of social  

   entrepreneurship in Berlin

Day 2: 

- Site Visit of ExRotaPrint

- Workshop at Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies 

   (Humboldt University Berlin): 

   sustainable urban development through social 

   entrepreneurship?*

Day 3:  

- Learning from Berlin? - Group meeting and final round up 

  of the field trip with Martin Schwegmann 

Routes of the different groups. (Guides: Carsten Joost, Anja Steglich, Yves Mikelsons-Roloff )                                                                                                                                                                                          










Workshop at meeting space of KUNSTrePUBLIK, Jürgen Breiter (THE HUB BERLIN)

Workshop at Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies.
Prof. Harald Mieg (welcoming the groups participants)

Workshop participants/function: 
Prof. Harald Mieg, Spokesman of Simmel Center (introduction); Heike Oevermann, Member of Simmel Center (moderation); Martin Schwegmann, Member of Simmel Center (moderation)

Inputs: 
Mathias Heyden, Assistant Professor Technical University Berlin: What are our real values? Community design and participatory architecture as tools for urban sustainability
Paola Alfaro d´Alencon and Daniela Konrad, Assistant Professors Technical University Berlin: Introduction of their Urban Research Camp; Design Laboratory

-->Frederik Björk, lecturer at Malmö University: Introduction to the Concepts of Social Entrepreneurship in connection to sustainable urban development

Magnus Johansson, Assistant Professor at Malmö University: Social innovation and sustainable urban development
Lise Bisballe, lecturer at Roskilde University and social entrepreneur: Introduction of the project socialventures@2200 in Copenhagen
Thomas Bisballe, analyst for the city of Copenhagen: Public actors and the facilitation of social entrepreneurship - How to interact with "the opposition
Levend Kalac, Architect and Master Student, Fachhochschule Frankfurt: Urban development challenges - the case of Norra Sorgenfri
Prof. Björn Bjerke, -->Linnaeus University: Local governments with public entrepreneurs in focus

 Learning from Berlin? - Round up of the field trip at the Michelberger Hotel, Berlin

ExRotaPrint 

    Johannesburg24 at Bar25

 Skateboard Venue at RAW Temple

  On site explanation of the block structure of Berlin by Yves Mikelsons Roloff 

Entrance to Prinzessinnengärten

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Reflections on the study trip from Karl Palmås: The ”post-productive” is the productive 

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Instant Dinner - Spontaneous Culture in Malmö - Sunday, 22nd of June

InstantDinner-

COMe ANd COOK WITh US!

By URBAN PASSION (Berlin - København)
Djawed Kimouche - Martin Schwegmann - Martin Søberg - Peter Bjerg

Date: Sunday 22. June 2008
Place: Kristianstadsgatan, Malmö
Time: 13 hours (first planners meeting)
dinner starts at 18pm

We come to malmö to prepare a dinner with everybody who wants to join us. Everybody can contribute! The idea is to start a spontaneous collective action with people we never met before - Come and Join us!

We are a group of passionate urbanists!. With "Instant Dinner" we wish to enhance the involvement of people in their urban context and raise the awareness for the potentials and the limits of spontaneous urban culture.

How to participate: You could join Urban Passion in the process during the day or you could just show up with food, drinks, good friends, music, furniture, candles etc.. to share with the

Malmö Islands - A new symbol for Malmö

competition 2007 by malmö form and design centre

winning entry - 2nd roundproject group:

peter bjerg, social innovation consultant, dk, metapol.dk
viviana de micheli, design student, it
martin schwegmann, architect, de
richard sjögren, entrepreneur, se
liv zetterling, artist, se

The task was to create a new symbol for the southern Swedish city of Malmö. What could that be we asked our selves and started thinking: Turning Torso, the just finished Highrise by the spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, times three?


No- we looked for unused potentials of the city and found them in its waterfronts, which are many places unused or not leading to street life, not connecting the spatial potential to vitalizing function.

So we came up with a catalyst, an easy to implement and easy to adapt solution: Floating Islands in a honeycomb shape.

These islands should have a special status, a free zone, were certain rules are not applied or are changed and tested. The island like a pirate island, where opening hours, tax and insurance matters can be treated differently for a period of legal adventure.

Malmö Islands would be a synonym for a progressive, daring urban development agenda of an upcoming local metropolis. It has the potential of a political showcase, the malmö model. Many cities in europe face similar challenges in dealing with their post industrial waterfronts. High prize development is just one possible answer.

Viral and humming cultural uses do seldomly stem from this type of development. Malmö Islands would be the possibility of integrating high culture and alternative drive.