How to find the balance between contemporary human needs and the planet’s ability to sustain them over time?
That’s the question behind CHANGE. Architecture. Cities Life, the architecture festival born from the awarding of the “Festival dell’Architettura” promoted by MiBACT – Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, to which Open City Rome promptly responded, in collaboration with Ordine Architetti Roma and MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, together with a dense network of partners, designers, economic and cultural actors.
Because of health emergency the festival, which was supposed to start just in these days, had to change the programs and, waiting for a new schedule planned for autumn, moved to social channels Facebook e Instagram to gather experiences, interventions and protagonists of the change that the festival intends to outline.
An opportunity to address, from a transdisciplinary perspective, the issues of urban regeneration and social innovation, carbon neutrality and energy saving, the use of intelligent systems and experimental materials, the renaturation of urban spaces and sustainable mobility.
“With climate change we face a fundamental challenge for us, which will be decisive for the survival of the next generations”. – explains Davide Paterna, President of Open City Roma “Compared to this scenario, the concept of quality in urban and architectural culture takes on a new meaning, closely related to the prospects of success of this challenge”.
Intellectuals, scientists, documentary filmmakers and creatives will rethink places and cities in a comparison developed through a series of formats, in which the actors of urban transformation, entrepreneurs, designers, public administrators will intervene, offering a reading of contemporary complexity and a series of contributions to the construction of viable hypotheses.
“MAXXI […] interprets the postponement as an opportunity to “bring in” a series of new themes to the festival that are only partly linked to the “state of exception” due to the pandemic” – underlines Pippo Ciorra, senior curator of the MAXXI Foundation. “The COVID_19 has in fact generated fear and isolation but has pushed us towards some innovations in behaviour, in the use of technology, in the need to cross and superimpose knowledge that will certainly leave traces even after the end of the emergency. Change proposes to use this extra time to consistently include these issues, which are very related to those already announced and related to the environment, in its program”.
Flavio Mangione, President of the Order of Architects of Rome and its province, also explains the role of the OAR as a partner of Change, underlining the added value of the architect in the construction of the cities of tomorrow: “Today we have a double challenge ahead of us” – he said –“our profession must be able to innovate to meet the needs accelerated by this historical phase, and give strength to the path of innovation already undertaken, aimed at meeting the needs of the contemporary regeneration, environment and simplification of procedures”.