The workshop was held from 19th through 20th June, 2018 at the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio, Italy. It was organized by Alain Thierstein, Nadia Alaily-Mattar (both Technical University of Munich), Davide Ponzini (Politecnico di Milano), Maria Gravari- Barbas and Francesca Cominelli (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University) and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) and Villa Vigoni.  

Theme: Throughout the world, cities are increasingly developing iconic buildings, museums, infrastructures or public spaces not only for their actual functions, but also for marketing and branding their respective city image, for attracting tourism and boosting media attention. In this process of urban transformation, star architects and multi-national design, engineering and planning firms are intricately involved. This workshop series aims at investigating that contested practice from various perspectives, which are currently still fractured between architecture, urban studies, geography, sociology, economics and tourism studies.

Background: The seminar series yearly gathers experts in architecture, urban planning, urban and economic geography for a period of three years. The objective is to discuss the urban implications of the global trend of flagship architecture development and the specific effects over the European cities, with particular reference to medium sized cities. This was the second out of three workshops of the seminar series encompassing scholars from University of Texas at Austin (UTA), Federico II University of Naples and University of Torino, Università Ca'Foscari and University of Vienna.

Outlook: The next workshop is scheduled in summer 2019. The seminar series will result in a book which features chapters by the workshop participants and will be published by Springer Nature. Expected release date is autumn of 2019. Contact: N.Alaily-Mattar@tum.de