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Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering

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fragmental_ on the dissolution of public space

Rome forms the foundation of a basic understanding of the identity and heritage of European architecture. Its ruinous monumentality is still more visibly present today for the city, for architecture and art than perhaps in no other metropolis in Europe. As a thematic follow-up to the symposium „monumental_public buildings at the beginning of the 21st century“ 2019 at the Baukunstarchiv NRW, the theme of „fragmental_dissolution of public space“ at the 2022 symposium at the Villa Massimo in Rome examines the ambivalent identity of a monumental and simultaneously romantic understanding of space between the built environment and its dissolution, between architecture and the reconquest of space by nature. At a time when our relationship to the unbuilt, to the „natural“ is being radically questioned and the static role of architecture is beginning to falter, concepts such as dissolution and fragmentation seem to be taking on a new identity-forming role in recent architectural development. But how does the relationship between architecture and the city develop?

The symposium seeks to take up the concept of the „public“ within recent positions and to critically reflect on its relation to a classical-romantic understanding of architecture.

The DORTMUNDER POSITIONEN event series took place for the first time in 2019 with the international symposium „monumental_public buildings at the beginning of the 21st century“ at the Baukunstarchiv NRW. The series aims to address current topics on public building typologies and related social issues of our time. It reflects the interrelationship between architecture and public space and their everlasting necessary transformations and changes.