REINVENTING HARBOUR CITIES II

Christian Schoen:

Introduction

Looking back it seems that the first part of the conference Reinventing Harbour Cities had taken place in another century – but in fact it was May last year. The focus was “Urban Planning and Art in Public Space” and speakers like Ólafur Elíasson or Vito Acconci for the arts or representatives from the urban planning offices of Fieldoperations (New York), West 8 (Rotterdam), Gehl architects (Kopenhagen) or from Hamburg Hafencity were asking themselves why there was obviously no general concept, no vision in creating Reykjavík’s urban future. It might be one of the few positive potentials of the crisis that it at first slows down the rapid expansion and at second creates the opportunity of revaluation and rethinking. This explains why it was important to have the second part now, in order to give a constructive input to a necessary discussion. This second part is dedicated to the “city’s night face” and thus adds something extremely necessary to the first one. “City illumination” is relevant to discuss, as it influences our perception of our environment and our reality, and it makes even more sense to discuss it here in Reykjavík, the northern capital with its long dark winter period.

Against the background of the urban development here in Reykjavík this conference, which was made possible through the generous support from Goethe-Institut, the French Embassy in Iceland and 101 hotel, aims to assemble knowledge from various high-ranking, international professionals from different fields dealing with our issue at hand to take up and take part in a general discussion.

With the interviews and articles of the previous parts we herewith round the documentation of the conference, starting with an introduction of co-organizer and architect Guja Dögg Hauksdóttir.