European Exchange Program

The 18-month program City Visions Europe, running from autumn 2008 to spring 2010, is focused on the role of architectural speculations in relation to evolution of the European city. It will provoke public debate on the future of four distinct European cities: Kosice (Slovakia), Bordeaux (France), Mechelen (Belgium), and Plzen (Czech Republic). All four cities have been candidates to become European Capital of Culture, a rotating title that highlights the cultural program of a European city during an entire year to stimulate the structural and sustainable development of the city.

In light of the tendency towards a generic and global architecture for generic and global cities, City Visions Europe focuses on the specific question of the European city. Eight architectural practices, under the direction of CARD's design research team, will develop perspectives for the four concerned cities, while exchanging with local and international experts, policy makers and citizens through a series of workshops.

These propositions will be presented to a professional audience, as well as the general public, during a series of citywide events in all four cities to take place at the end of 2009. This will be followed a series of public presentations and roundtable discussion aimed at provoking both a local and international debate about these cities and the European city in general. The program will be realized in collaboration with arc-en-rêve centre d'architecture in Bordeaux, France; the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp, Belgium; MMMechelen vzw in Mechelen, Belgium; and the Centre for Central European Architecture in Prague, Czech Republic.