scientific diffusion Seminars and Agenda Lecture on Urban Projects
Lecture on Urban Projects
“The European geography of large urban projects-mega sporting events and their alibis” was a lecture delivered by Petros Petsimeris at FAU-USP. This was an initiative of the FAU-USP, LAB / HAB Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM), CEBRAP, the graduate program in Human Geography at USP, and Mira Central (free study group on central areas). The lecturer was a professor at the Université de Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne and a visiting professor from the University of Barcelona. Petsimeris, a Greek architect and geographer, is an expert in the rehabilitation of downtown areas, socio-spatial segregation and migration processes in Europe. His research deals with the impact of major urban projects in countries like Spain, the United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy and France. The lecture was held on December 1, at FAU-USP, Cidade Universitária (University City).
POST-EVENT
Athens and the Olympic games
In his presentation, architect Petros Petsimeris approached aspects of his research about the Olympic Games as a way to understand the geography and planning in some urban centers. His lecture was mostly about Athens’ case and making a comparative analysis from 1896 to 2004, when the city was hosting the event. He took basic elements such as size, population, density, economic base, urban structure, social geography, politics, and infrastructure, among others.
His presentation centered on key elements connected to the Olympic Games’ chronology in aspects related to urban transformations, because there are linked to the production of important elements related to the city's infrastructure, and also with the geopolitical and geographic changes, besides those related to ownership of space (Pax Olímpica, Pax Aedificativ, Pax Urbanística and Pax post-Olímpica).
He raised some hypotheses about the production of new space in correlation with social space (the direct relationship between social structure of space and ethnic changes). He described some differences between the Barcelona and the Athens’ cases, especially about the privatization process, and the fragmentation and role of the builders who participated in the project. He also stressed the catalyst role and production of public works in Athens whose demand, in some cases, dated back 100 years.
He addressed certain issues related to experience, perception and imagination as opposite to accessibility, appropriation and the uses of the spaces, its domination and control, like lifting actions in some areas, the unification of archeologist spaces, rehabilitation of the historic downtown areas (where a big part of the population needs to leave their houses to give space to luxury places), the importance of immigrant workers (many illegal) to carry out the labour and also the surveillance, which consumes three or four times the amount spent with the infrastructure of the event. The researcher also reported an increase in the number of immigrants during the construction/transformation of the area, as well as transportation and communication facilities, besides the central redistribution of the metropolitan space, and the increasing accessibility, among others, positives and negatives issues.
His findings are related to the impact of the Olympic Games (Athens) in order of urban problems, its value as a means of control and at the same time as the catalyst of change without control, lamenting the fact that there were no alternative plans. According to Petsimeris, the plan for Athens was linked more to the myth than to reality, and was characterized by a lack of transparency and dissemination actions.
