Conferència inaugural Philip Ursprung

Inici de curs 2025-2026 | Conferència inaugural:

What happened to the terrain vague? The comeback of Public Space
a càrrec de Philip Ursprung

dimecres, 3 de setembre a les 9.30h al CCCB
carrer Montalegre 5, 08001 Barcelona

What Happened to the Terrain Vague? The comeback of Public Space
Philip Ursprung

30 years ago, Ignasi de Solà-Morales Rubió coined the notion of « terrain vague ». The non-defined zone, open for future change, became the promise of the evolution of urbanity and the public space. Has the promise been kept? Does the future still play a role in the conception of public spaces? Has the freedom of the terrain been confined and the dynamics of the wave (double-meaning of the French word vague as both “wave” and something “not clear”) been frozen? Are there new openings to imagine the future of public space today?  Today, much inspiration comes from bottom-up initiatives at unexpected places. The lecture will highlight the comeback of shared public spaces and argue for a reactivation of the notion of the “terrain vague.”

Philip Ursprung is Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zürich where he served as Dean 2017- 2019. He studied art history in Geneva, Vienna and Berlin and taught at UdK Berlin, Columbia University, the Barcelona Institute of Architecture, the Singapore ETH Center in Singapore and Cornell University. He has curated Herzog & de Meuron: Archeology of the Mind at the CCA in Montreal (2002) and represented Switzerland with Karin Sander with the exhibition Neighbors at the 18th Architecture Biennale (2023). His most recent books are Architektur der Gegenwart (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2025), Joseph Beuys: Kunst Kapital Revolution (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2021) and Gordon Matta-Clark: An Archival Sourcebook (co-edited, Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2022).

Two monographs have been published in Spanish: Representación del Trabajo: Historiografie Performative (Santiago de Chile: ARQ Ediciones, 2018), and Brechas y conexiones: Ensayos sobre arquitectura, arte y economía (Barcelona: Puente Editores, 2016).