Presenting a paper on narratives of the urban waterfront in crisis today at a seminar at the University of Tampere on spatial themes.

“How is the experience of crisis at the waterfront, and the uncertainty vis-a-vis possible futures, shaped in and by narrative?

This paper looks at narratives of the post-industrial urban waterfront from two distinct, but intermingling perspectives. I examine how narrative fiction frames the experience of the waterfront in crisis, and how literature presents possible futures and alternative courses of action in the face of crises. My research moves on to analyse how, in planning and policy documents of the waterfront, the simultaneous possibility of alternative storyworlds structures the way planning narratives are shaped. This research is interested, in particular, in how competing alternative storyworlds organize the narrative dynamics in both contemporary literary narratives and policy documents, juxtaposing desirable with undesirable storyworlds, and identifying moments of agency – the possibility to act towards a particular future. Three case studies will be addressed: the development of post-industrial waterfronts in Antwerp (Belgium), Helsinki (Finland) and New York City (US) in the period 1990–2015. The juxtaposition of these two different sets of texts will put into greater focus the sense of urgency of many of the literary texts examined, while simultaneously drawing out the profoundly rhetoric and narrative strategies underlying policy documents.”

Guest Lecture & Seminar on Spatial Themes

8 November 2016, room B4116

14.15 Elena Trubina (Ural State University):  ‘Permsky Kul’turnyi Proekt’ [Perm Cultural Project]: Looking back, looking forward

15.15  Lieven Ameel: Narratives of the Urban Waterfront in Crisis

15.40  coffee

15.55  Essi Katila: Russian Arctic as Utopian Myth and Apocalyptic Space – an Ecocritical Approach

16.20  Pasi Metsä: From Fittja to Myrbacka – Poor People’s Spaces in Mathias Rosenlund’s autobiography ‘Kopparbergsvägen 20’ (2013)

16.45  Yulia Bakhtina: Identity and Space in Narratives of Russian-Speaking Ingrian Finns

17.10 Books & refreshments

Interesting article in luxurylondon.co.uk (via @OliMould) with an interview with Peter Rees on high density and high-rise in London.

His answer to the question of what alternatives there are to high-rise:

“The idea that to increase density you have to build high is, frankly, bollocks. To achieve high density, you build around the edges of a site, put a nice garden with trees in the middle, five to seven storeys tall. Cities from Helsinki to Naples have developed like that over 100s of years. When you build a high-rise block in the middle of a site, the open space is in the wrong place, it’s around the outside of the site where the traffic is. It doesn’t feel private. You don’t want to sit in your deck chair looking out on Vauxhall Cross.”

I’ve never heard someone sum up the key characteristics of the Helsinki inner/central city so well – or the alternative to such inner-city blocks. The plans for future Helsinki are emphatically designed to have more of such inner-city-like squares, with much urban life and bustle. So how come this will be the result?

Picture: Cino Zucchi Architetti

Part of my ongoing research is spent trying to put the pieces of those different story-lines together.

Talking today at the University of Tampere about the analysis of digital data in urban planning contexts, at the Digitality, media & language days.

My talk continues work I presented earlier this year at the Nordic digital humanities conference in Oslo.

Strange to live in a time when academic titles and merits seem to inspire nothing but derision and contempt among the political classes. But for me, that changes little to how I regard my work within academics, and I am thrilled that the Tampere University of Technology, School of Architecture, has awarded me the title of docent of Urban Studies and Planning Methods. If anything, I will use the title as a title of honor – or, to use a Dutch word for which English does not really have an equivalent, as “geuzennaam”.

I posted some notes about my docent lecture earlier here.

Today 13.1.2016 I’m at the Tampere University of Technology, Department of Architecture, for my Docent Lecture.

The subject of my lecture is: “Narrative Frames as Methodology in Urban Planning Theory: Traces of Utopia and the Bildungsroman in Contemporary Planning”

Part of my ongoing research concerning narratives in planning, with several upcoming publications.

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Note: the term “docent” in the context of the Finnish academy is a title, not entirely dissimilar to Adjunct Professor or the German Privatdozent.

Speaking at the University of Tampere on the subject of urban planning after utopia (in Finnish). Is there a new utopian paradigm in urban planning? Or do we live irrevocably in an era past utopia?

Full program here and below:

AIKA – ilmenemismuodot, menetelmät ja merkitykset kirjallisuudessa ja sen tutkimuksessa

9.15–9.30 alkusanat

Osio I Puheenjohtaja Maria Laakso

9.30–10.00 Anneli Niinimäki: ”Niin tuli jälleen ehtoo ja Jakobsson”. Ajan ilmaiseminen Lauri Viidan Moreenissa

10.00–10.30 Mirja Nieminen: Ajan esittämisen keinot Ville Hytösen ja Mika Vaaranmaan Isosisän alppiruusu kuvituksessa

10.30–11.00 Mikko Kallionsivu: myöhäiskeskiaikaisesta makaaberin traditioon kuuluvasta runosta tai taideteoksesta ajan hahmottamisen hermeneutiikan näkökulmasta.

11.00–11.30 Aino Mäkikalli Aikakäsitykset ja 1700-luvun alun romaani

11.30–12.15 Lounas

Osio II Puheenjohtaja Lieven Ameel

12.15–12.45 Juha Raipola: Radalle köytetyt: resiinaongelma ja kerronnallinen sulkeuma

12.45–13.15 Toni Lahtinen: Subjektiivinen aika, epookki ja iäisyys Aino Kallaksen novellikokoelmassa Seitsemän

13.15–13.45 Martti Ojanen: Aito aika fiktiivisen romaanin rakenteena: John Dos Passoksen U.S.A.-trilogia

13.45–14.00 Tauko

Osio III Puheenjohtaja Toni Lahtinen

14.00–14.30 Samuli Björninen: Keskeneräisen ja liian pitkälle viedyn romaanisulkeuman poetiikkaa: Dickensin Edwin Droodin arvoitus ja Pynchonin V.

14.30–15.00 Lieven Ameel: Kaupunkisuunnittelun kertomuksia utopian jälkeen

15.00–15.30 Mikko Turunen: Aikakäsitysten limittyminen Lassi Nummen lyriikassa

15.30 viinitilaisuus tulkkausstudiossa Pinni B4087

Speaking 18.11.2015 about the university in literature (in Finnish) at the Helsinki University Studia Universitaria series.

I’ll be talking, in particular, about the image of the student and lecturer in literature, about the models literature provides for action in difficult times.

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Ke 18.11.2015 klo 16−18 Yliopisto ja kaupungin kielimaisemat ja Yliopisto kirjallisuudessa

Dosentti Terhi Ainiala & prof. Pirkko Nuolijärvi: Yliopisto ja kaupungin kielimaisemat. FT Lieven Ameel: Yliopisto kirjallisuudessa. Tilaisuuden puheenjohtaja FT Paula Arvas. Paikka: Helsinki Päärakennus auditorio XII (Unioninkatu 34).

One of the most concise and thought-provoking essays on the city in recent history is Jürgen Osterhammel’s chapter “Cities. European Models and Worldwide Creativity” in his monumental The Transformation of the World. A Global History of the Nineteenth Century.

“Urbanization used to be understood in a narrow sense as the rapid growth of cities in conjunction with the spread of mechanized factory production; urbanization and industrialization appeared as two sides of the same coin. This view can no longer be upheld. The definition that is common today takes urbanization to be a process of social acceleration, compression, and reorganization, which may occur under a range of very different circumstances. The most important outcome of this process was the formation of spaces of increased human interaction in which information was swiftly exchanged and optimally employed, and new knowledge could be created under favorable institutional conditions. Cities – especially large cities- were concentrations of knowledge; sometimes that is why people headed to them.” (p. 249)

What constitutes an appropriate form of knowledge in terms of policy and planning? And what forms of knowledge can be reasonably taken into consideration when planning and studying cities? Moving back to Jonathan Raban’s idea of the “soft city” – and at the same time, to the notion that much of that soft knowledge we have of “soft cities” is available in the forms of narratives – and may require specific considerations informed by narrative studies/theory to fully appreciate their layered meanings.

“… living in cities is an art […] The city as we imagine it, the soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture (Raban 1975, 10)

Jonathan Raban 1975: Soft City. London: Harvill.