Last night we had the pleasure of hosting Benjamin Barber as part of the IaaC Spring Lecture Series 2014. Before starting the Lecture itself, Barber was given a tour of the IaaC facilities by MAA Director Areti Markopoulou, having the opportunity to see and discuss some of the works developed in the Master in Advanced Architecture and the Open Thesis Fabrication programs.
In the audience Vicente Guallart, Chief Architect of the Barcelona City Council, Manuel Sanroma, President of the City Protocol Society, Joan Subirats, Full Professor of Sociology, as well as Antoni Munne and Montae Ingla, Arcadia editors were all present for the discussion that Barber proposed.
Barber discussed themes of city governance, starting with some brief historical notes, to then elaborate the potentials city governance and the city itself has in future of democracy with respect to the older Nation state models. Cities and their leaders are now taking decisions that were once reserved to the nation states relative to climate change, immigration, and much more. Cities, with their multicultural connotation, are, in contraposition to the States an their monocultural connotation, in a position to face these imposing problems, together, in a sort of global democracy. The aggregate force of cities has the potential to have a powerful and direct effect on the market place, and not only. Cities, and their citizens, need to be heard, they need to have a larger voice.
