V AEAULP International Seminar on Architecture and Urbanism in Brasília
Today, despite the upheavals typical of an age based on technology and information, despite the risks inherent in this kind of society and awareness of the challenges it poses, we are more aware of what surrounds us. Our conscience enshrined the idea of a single world. Not global, not generic, but one and undivided, made up of spaces that were once separate and are now permanently connected. These connections, more than airlines or long-distance communication systems, make us aware of an interconnected world that leaves no one or any place isolated. We have moved from a world made up of fragments separated by space, ignorance and prejudice, to a world in which borders are falling, one by one.
Humanity does not function as a single entity in an increasingly pluralistic world. A mirror of this was the recent pandemic state that we witnessed globally as a modern society. The connecting links between individuals were, until then, acquired data, like cumulative and associative layers of what we understood as a community. Suddenly, these constitutive rights of our modern conquest were taken away from us. After the first shock wave, what kept us together inside the house was the intrinsic ability to stay close, though physically separated, over large or small distances.
The motto that the Academy of Portuguese Language Schools of Architecture and Urbanism proposes for the V Seminar is to describe the relationships that kept people close, which was reflected not only in human capital, but also in the capital of the city structure. We intend to reactivate these relationships, to reconquer those that were lost, solidify those that were maintained and exalt those that were built anew and still remain. Distant Proximity is the antonym that tries to make these experiences real. It seeks to give voice to a “language that we all inhabit” and in which all these thoughts of proximity and distance, science and vox populi manifest themselves. It is important to re-establish the ties that have become dormant, but also to share this experience of ours as a social organism, as a community.
In contemporary society, the flow of information can be used as a control of that same society or as a unifying tool between the individual and the plural. It is up to, not only but also, academic society to create operative ties and scrutinize information, so that the subject is aware of his real past, has a perfect understanding of his present and manages to exercise dominion over his future.
Thematic axes
The city in a post-pandemic society; The new mobilities; Tourism and landscape; Urban heritage and architecture; Sustainability and technology; Catastrophes, conflicts and reconstruction; Democracy and the housing crisis; Transversalities and contaminations in Lusophone territories; Architecture as a cultural statement; The role of architectural theory and criticism.
Important dates
April 24: Reception of abstracts
October 15: Delivery of revised final papers
November 22–24: Conference takes place
