Urban architectural festival for Johannesburg

The festival has been endorsed by the City of Johannesburg and will be held under the patronage of the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA).

As an urban culture festival, it will bring together leading-edge thinkers and multi-disciplinary practitioners from around the globe. It is reportedly the first time an event of this scope has been held in South Africa. This multi-disciplinary cast of thinkers will stimulate discussion during conference panel discussions and master classes. Together they will offer new takes on old problems and offer new ways of viewing the city

Public can participate

The event has been structured to reach the broadest possible audience and to accommodate delegates at all levels. The public has also been included thanks to a variety of events and exhibitions across Johannesburg including poetry readings, city walking tours, live music and drama performances and photography and architecture exhibitions. The Architect Africa Film Festival 2010 will also be showing at venues across the city.

Themes of Re-imagining the City and Post-Event City will open debate about Southern Africa's urban future. Topics include sustainability, urban public space and how best to use a city's infrastructure after hosting a global event such as the 2010 World Cup. It will probe the role of architecture in the formation of a "world class African city," as well as the green agenda.

Design by Fernando Menis

click to enlarge

"Joburg manifests and concentrates many current global urban conditions - enormous disparities of income; rapid transformation under a socialist-leaning government; wealthy capitalist institutions operating alongside street traders and self-built squatter settlements and entrenched institutional four-roomed suburbs - the remnants of a segregated past - within sight of gated communities reminiscent of Beverly Hills," comments programme directors Sarah Calburn and Rodney Place.

"Unlike Sao Paulo or Lagos, Joburg operates at a range of manageable scales that makes the strategic role of architecture particularly interesting, and opens Joburg to extraordinary possibility for experimentation and speculation as a global model. In order to expose the complexity of our urban cultures, we have taken the broadest possible approach to the formation of this conference. Speakers and participants are being drawn from a wide range of urban players: from cultural practitioners to development economists, both centre-stage and counter-culture. We aim to intensify awareness of the roles that architecture can play in this complex city towards the many possible re-inventions of our urban futures."

Go to www.aza2010.org for the full programme.