Description

Lecturer: Alexandre Kostka

Strasbourg (circa 280 000 inhabitants) boasts itself for being the oldest "European" capital, welcoming since 1949 the Council of Europe, since 1952 the parliamentary Assembly of the ECSC (which evolved into the European Parliament) – and the city itself and its surrounding region on the other side of the Rhine constitute since 2005 a "Eurodistrict" including the German neighborhood towns; in Spring 2017 a direct tram line connected Strasbourg to Kehl.
2017 was also the year when the "German" Neustadt received a UNESCO world heritage label – symbolizing the integration of a formerly less valued part of the city into the mental landscape of the inhabitants. The same year, a cluster of exhibitions ("Strasbourg, laboratoire d'Europe", which took place at the Museum of Modern art, and several other locations) highlighted the multi-facetted cultural history of Strasbourg.
This seminar wishes to explore not only the present situation of a medium size city that accommodates institutions and several thousand European civil servants and their families; it also asks about the genealogy of urban tissue that make up a shared urban history, where for centuries German and French, but also other European and non-European influences have created a unique overlapping architectonic and cultural texture. Other European cities are taken under scrutiny for comparison. Several renowned historians of architecture, urbanists, political scientists and practitioners of European institutions will present their viewpoints for discussion.
For assessment, students will be asked to form teams of 3/4 participants, which will realize several cultural projects ("city rallies" for adults, based on the assessment of the urban structure; blueprints of renovation projects for different parts of the city taking into account European funding structures, innovating schemes for tourism, etc...) Previously, the project has to be discussed with the docents, and presented in class.