The City Between Freedom and Security: Contested Public Spaces in the 21st Century

The publication “City Between Freedom and Security” (edited by Deane Simpson, Vibeke Jensen, and Anders Rubing) explores the contested territory between the state and corporate drive to 'securitise' urban space - and the principle of the city as a site for enacting open civil society, participatory democracy, and the freedom of speech and assembly. The book functions as a broader discursive platform mediating opposing positions at the intersection of architecture/urbanism and security/democracy.

Vibeke Jensen is a Norwegian artist with a particular interest in the psychogeographic mapping of the urban scene, and its deconstruction and reconfiguration within the space of digital information. In particular, Jensen has investigated the practice of surveillance, recognizing this as a central structural element of advanced urban cultures. Her interventions in public space have been realized in Shanghai, New York, Oslo, Trondheim, Graz, and most recently in the Triennale Brugge 2015. As part of her critical spatial praxis Vibeke teaches at the Bergen School of Architecture where she has been a visiting professor since 2010.

Deane Simpson is an architect, urbanist and educator teaching and researching at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen, where he is Associate Professor and co-leader with Charles Bessard of the masters program Urbanism and Societal Change. He taught at BAS Bergen, the Architectural Association in London, and the ETH in Zurich, and was Senior Researcher at the ETH SEC Future Cities Laboratory. His research addresses contemporary urban and architectural phenomena, including themes such as: the urban implications of demographic transformation; social and environmental sustainability within urban and regional settings; the securitization of the public space; and the spatial conditions aligned to the transformation of Danish welfare systems. He is author of Young-Old: Urban Utopias of an Aging Society (2015); co-editor of The City Between Freedom and Security (2016), and co-editor of the forthcoming Atlas of the Copenhagens (2017).

The City Between Freedom and Security: Contested Public Spaces in the 21st Century
Deane Simpson, Vibeke Jensen, Anders Rubing (Eds.)
Birkhäuser Verlag 2017
ISBN 978-3-0356-0761-1

Organized by:
CUD Chair for Urban Design and Urbanization TU Berlin, Prof. Jörg Stollmann

Partners:
HABITAT UNIT TU Berlin, Prof. Philipp Misselwitz
Bildende Kunst TU Berlin, Prof. Stefanie Bürkle
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