Table Of ContentThe City on Display
The City on Display: Architecture Festivals and the Urban Commons
reflects on the biennials, triennials, and other festivals of architecture and
design that have been held over the last two decades, as they expand and
transform in response to the exigencies of ‘planetary urbanisation’. Joel
Robinson examines the development of these large-scale, international,
and perennial exhibitions as they address such challenges as urban regener-
ation, heritage preservation, climate change, and the migration crisis.
Homing in on examples of festivals in Venice, Rotterdam, Oslo, Tallinn,
Sharjah, Seoul, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, the author describes how they
alter the public spaces that host them, either through civic boosterism and
gentrification, on the one hand, or through a reassertion of the urban com-
mons and the right to the city, on the other hand. He attempts to thema-
tise the architecture festival's relationship with the city and interrogate its
potential as a forum for global debate about the emergencies of the urban
condition.
This book will be beneficial for students and academics of architecture
and urbanism, and especially those who have an interest in how the city
gets exhibited at such festivals and even reimagined as something other
than it currently is.
Joel Robinson is an Associate Lecturer at The Open University in the UK.
Routledge Research in Architecture
The Routledge Research in Architecture series provides the reader with the
latest scholarship in the field of architecture. The series publishes research
from across the globe and covers areas as diverse as architectural history
and theory, technology, digital architecture, structures, materials, details,
design, monographs of architects, interior design and much more. By mak-
ing these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series
aims to promote quality architectural research.
Radical Functionalism
A Social Architecture for Mexico
Luis E. Carranza
The Architect and the Academy
Essays on Research and Environment
Dean Hawkes
Architecture of Threshold Spaces
A Critique of the Ideologies of Hyperconnectivity and Segregation in the
Socio-Political Context
Laurence Kimmel
Pyrotechnic Cities
Architecture, Fire-Safety and Standardisation
Liam Ross
Architecture and the Housing Question
Edited by Can Bilsel and Juliana Maxim
Mies at Home
From Am Karlsbad to the Tugendhat House
Xiangnan Xiong
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Research-in-Architecture/book-series/RRARCH
The City on Display
Architecture Festivals and
the Urban Commons
Joel Robinson
Cover image: Didier Faustino and the Bureau des Mesarchitectures,
Double Happiness, installed near the Shenzhen Civic Centre, at City
Mobilisation (6 December 2009–23 January 2010), the 3rd UABB/
SZ, directed by Ou Ning. Courtesy of Ou Ning and the UABB.
Photograph: © Sun Xiaoxi.
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Joel Robinson
The right of Joel Robinson to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-60400-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-32538-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-46877-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429468773
Typeset in Sabon
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
For Dad
Contents
List of Figures viii
Acronyms xv
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction 1
1 Festival city: Proving grounds for the commons 19
2 Agonistic city: Regenerations and/or reclamations 51
3 Capitalocene city: Tools for circularity and degrowth 101
4 Refuge city: Cultural advocates for global citizenship 155
Postscript 203
Bibliography 209
Index 239
Figures
1.1 Dogma, Primary, installation in Sharjah’s Um Al Taraffa district,
as part of the exhibit Platforms, at Rights of Future Generations
(9 November 2019–8 February 2020), the first SAT, directed by
Adrian Lahoud. Courtesy of the SAT. Photograph: © Antoine
Espinasseau 21
1.2 Aerial view of Shenzhen’s Civic Centre and Citizens Square
during Architecture Creates Cities; Cities Create Architecture
(7 December 2011–19 February 2012), the fourth UABB/SZ,
directed by Terence Riley. Courtesy of the UABB 21
1.3 feld72 Architects, Public Trailer, near the Shenzhen Civic
Centre, at City Mobilisation (6 December–23 January 2009),
the third UABB/SZ, directed by Ou Ning. Courtesy of the
UABB and Ou Ning. Photograph: © Bai Xiaoxi 22
1.4 Doreen Heng Liu and Nansha Original Design’s entrance
building for the Value Factory (Site A) at the Guangdong Float
Glass Factory (now demolished) in Shenzhen’s Shekou Industrial
Zone, at Urban Border (6 December 2013–28 February 2014),
the fifth UABB/SZ, directed by Ole Bouman, Li Xiangning, and
Jeffrey Johnson. Courtesy of the UABB. Photograph: © David
Basulto 23
1.5 Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS), aerial view of the
Luchtsingel (2011–2014), as part of Test Site Rotterdam, at
Making City (20 April–12 August 2012), the fifth IABR,
directed by George Brugmans. Courtesy of ZUS. Photograph:
© Ossip Van Duivenbode 26
1.6 Frida Escobedo, Civic Stage, installed in Lisbon’s Praça da
Figueira, for the New Publics programme coordinated by
José Esparza Chong Cuy, at Close, Closer (12 September–15
December 2013), the third LAT, directed by Beatrice Galilee.
Courtesy of Frida Escobedo and the LAT. Photograph:
© Catarina Botelho 27
Figures ix
1.7 George Brugmans (DIS)CONNECT, or MISSING LINK
(2016), diagram illustrating the IABR as a ‘sabbatical
detour’. Courtesy of the IABR 29
1.8 Andrés Jaque, Superpowers of Ten, a play using Frida
Escobedo’s Civic Stage, during the New Publics programme
coordinated by José Esparza Chong Cuy, at Close, Closer
(12 September–15 December 2013), the third LAT, directed
by Beatrice Galilee. Courtesy of Frida Escobedo and the LAT.
Photograph: © Delfino Legnani 43
1.9 ZUS, aerial view of the Luchtsingel (2011–14) and roof
garden DakAkker on the Schieblock, as part of Test Site
Rotterdam, at Making City (20 April–12 August 2012),
the fifth IABR, directed by George Brugmans. Courtesy
of ZUS. Photograph: © Ossip Van Duivenbode 46
2.1 Opening ceremony on the parade ground of Hong Kong’s
Central Police Station Compound, at Refabricating the City
(10 January–15 March 2008), the first UABB/HK, directed
by Wang Weijen. Courtesy of the 2008 UABB Hong Kong
Curatorial Team 52
2.2 Satellite image of the exhibition sites in Venice’s Arsenale
district. Source: GoogleEarth 60
2.3 Aldo Cibic’s installation of the main exhibition in the
Corderie dell’Arsenale at Cities, Architecture, and Society
(10 September–19 November 2006), the tenth VAB, directed
by Richard Burdett. Courtesy of Cibic and Partners.
Photograph: © Santi Caleca 61
2.4 Alexander D’Hooghe, 1:1 replica of a fragment of the
Brussels Immigrant Market (2015), installed at the Gaggiandre
dell’Arsenale, which shelters a 1:1 replica of NLÉ’s Makoko
Floating School (2013), at Reporting from the Front
(28 May–27 November 2016), the fifteenth VAB, directed by
Alejandro Aravena. Courtesy of La Biennale. Photograph:
© Joel Robinson 62
2.5 1010 Architecture Urbanism, What do you
need (to thrive)?, a project for Atelier Rotterdam:
Test Site M4H+, exhibited in the HaKa building at The
Missing Link (1 June–8 July 2018), the eighth IABR,
directed by Floris Alkemade, Leo Van Broeck, and
Joachim Declerck. Courtesy of 1010au 66
2.6 URBANUS, View of the OCT-LOFT Renovation (2003–12),
in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, implemented during the first
editions of the UABB/SZ. Courtesy of URBANUS.
Photograph: © Wu Qiwei 69
