MUSAC - Contemporary art Museum of Castilla y León, Spain
The Project
Post-Pandemic Cities raises the voice of a community of architects, urban planners and artists to give a profound reflection on the current health crisis. With this initiative, the museum aims to reinforce the notion of an expanded museum as a platform for thought and research, but also as an adaptative place that has a capacity to go beyond its walls in the commitment to the urgencies and challenges we face as a society.
How are urbanism and architecture related to the spread of viruses? Will this health crisis change the ways of understanding cities? What new spaces for encounter will emerge? Since the beginning of COVID-19, people from the fields of architecture, urban planning or contemporary creation have shared how the design of the places we inhabit is one of the key factors in promoting the well-being of the planet, a debate that has become inevitable since the lockdown of March 2020.
Post-Pandemic Cities was conceived during this first lockdown, as a result of a careful observation of the changes that the world was undergoing on an architecture and urban level. The empty city and aseptic homes became a new opportunity to rethink our spaces, in the same way that pandemics in the past have established regulations that have become the foundations for habitability in the present.
This monthly podcast is composed of personal reflections with a duration between 10 to 20 minutes, and ponders on significant questions such as environmental emergencies, inequalities, mutual care, the rights of people in the urban process, urban collaborative work, cohabitation of multi-species, design with big data or degrowth, through specific projects by leading architects, artists, thinkers, theorists, etc. It is an opportunity to learn about other contexts, to delve into proposals that promote more livable spaces, to ask ourselves about what the places we inhabit are like or, simply, to be more aware of the commitment that we have towards our planet.
In the long run, it can also serve as a live archive of a historic moment with voices from all across the globe. The initiative is a testament that museums could be a platform for thought and research but also an adaptative place that has a capacity to go beyond its walls in the commitment to the urgencies and challenges we face as a society.
The Post-Pandemic Cities podcast is part of a long-term research program in MUSAC that was conceived in 2010 with the objective of delving into the understanding of architecture as an expanded field. Entitled AA_Art & Architecture Collection, it is an exhibition and editorial series that features monographs by leading architects and/or artists who work on the borderline between these two fields. With Post-Pandemic Cities, the museum seeks to increase the scope of the study, creating a database of ideas, possibilities, realities, or perhaps, alternative futures.
Links to the institution website as relevant support material:
https://ciudadespospandemia.musac.es
https://musac.es/#programacion/programa/obras-hermanas-general