Itineraries of the 2020 Biennial of Thought
Architecture and urban planning, democracy, technology and the future. These are the main topics for a programme which sets out challenges and seeks solutions through the experience of experts and the general public.
Itineraris de la Biennal de pensament
Let’s rethink our city
The city is a key stakeholder for our present and future societies. A place to live, move about and interact. A place to access services and foster security, health and inclusion.
We are becoming increasingly aware of the need to place life and people in all their diversity and complexity at the heart of the design of cities. To create cities that listen and observe attentively and empathetically and that earn people’s trust, understand them, and take care of them. That generate cooperation and community. A healthy and inclusive public space.
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Democracy in the time of crisis
In recent years, democracy has undergone transformations that mean we must once again collectively reflect on its meaning and its future. The market economy, the rise of populisms - particularly those underpinning far right ideologies - and other political pathologies threaten our democratic institutions.
Our reflection needs to be placed within the context of an ecological and environmental transition that goes against short-term, electoral logic and generates the need to transform public awareness to meet this extraordinary challenge head on.
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Technological metamorphosis
In the midst of the digital era, the world is shifting towards an increasingly global context defined by total commercial interdependence between countries and wireless human connectivity at a global level - social networks, 5G, Big Data, etc. - or open source data on an international scale.
Urban design must make a clear commitment to incorporating technological innovations when planning smart cities. It must also be willing to create a network of digital manufacturing facilities that drive the small and medium-scale production and distribution of everyday objects: fab cities.
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The challenges of the future
The Covid-19 crisis has brought life as we know it to an abrupt halt. The collapse caused by the pandemic has plunged us into a state of uncertainty where fear of loss of rights and freedoms and the proliferation of authoritarian measures seem to lead us to the same place: the negation of the future.
However, the situation is also an opportunity to bring about profound change and can reveal the limitations of a way of life that has now been disrupted forever. What could come out of this crisis? What new utopias, what new words do we need to make sense of and co-create the world that is now emerging?
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