The international conference Power & Space: transforming the contemporary city ran over a period of two and a half days. It included 30 papers, three of which were keynote presentations by Dr. Wendy Pullan (Cambridge/UK), Professor Lebbeus Woods (Cooper Union/USA) and Dr. Charles Jencks (UK). It involved 38 speakers (16 of which were post-graduate students) from 12 countries and 20 universities from around the world. Invited speakers included acclaimed academics and theoreticians such as Professor Marcial Echenique (Cambridge, UK), Professor Jonathan Hill (Bartlett, UK), Professor Jane Rendell (Bartlett, UK), Senior Lecturer Lawrence Barth (AA, UK), Professor James Anderson (Queen’s University, Belfast, UK) and architect and film-director Jord den Hollander (The Netherlands).

A poster exhibition, held in parallel, featured the work of nine researchers in the fields of architecture, art, city-planning and cinema (8 of which were post-graduate students). In addition, a series of screenings showcased the moving image work of seven researchers (four of which were post-graduate students).

Contributors’ backgrounds could be traced to a variety of disciplines such as architecture, art, geography, philosophy, film studies and anthropology. In total, 115 delegates attended the conference.

The conference was generously supported by the AHRC, the Department of Architecture, CRASSH – Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and Darwin College.

The conference has been specifically designed to foster two approaches (which, of course, might be inhabited and re-inhabited in multiple ways). First, inviting the point of view of the author-designer, the conference aims to track the conceptualisation, design and construction of space as an expression of multiple power structures. Second, inviting the point of view of the citizen-user, the conference aims to capture the experience, reading, and potential detournements of space — how distributions of power in the contemporary city invite diverse agents to participate in and so transform the spaces they inhabit. We, the conference organisers, believe that studying and communicating such transformations can create important opportunities to redefine power relations, especially insofar as such investigations might lead to a reconsideration of the reasoning and ideological convictions on which power relations are grounded. Ultimately, in organising Power and Space we have aimed to initiate what we expect will be long-term dialogues between researchers and practitioners from a wide variety of fields.

Papers were organised in nine sessions that addressed different but interrelated points.

Session 01: “Places of Exchange” addressed the economies and social structures of traditional and current market places. 

Session 02: “Distributions of Power” discussed nature and the environment as decisive factors in future urban growth. 

Session 03: “Re-visioning the City” studied ways of perceiving the city through new technologies and the media. 

Session 04: “The Moving Image as an Expression of Power” looked into cinematic representations of cities and how they promote or challenge existing power relations. 

Session 05: “Politics and the Urban Condition” tackled issues of theory and practice in contemporary urban design. 

Session 06: “Making the Monumental” focused on urban public spaces and their role in promoting or undermining established power structures. 

Session 07: “Body Politic” promoted a broader understanding of power through autonomy, sexuality and the senses. 

Session 08: “Sites of Conflict” sought to reveal tensions in the contemporary city. 

And finally, session 09: “Constructions of Power” dealt with the construction of identity through a critique of contemporary urban forms.

As part of an attempt to disseminate the results of Power & Space, in the near future the organising committee is planning to make available online (via the conference website) video recordings that were made of the paper presentations. Thus, all the conference sessions and ensuing discussions will be accessible to a considerably wider community of researchers.

Furthermore, the organising committee of the conference – which includes PhD researchers Stavros Alifragkis (Cambridge, UK), Giorgos Artopoulos (Cambridge, UK), Popi Iacovou (Bartlett, UK), Stamatina Th. Rassia (Cambridge, UK), and mixed-media writer Kai Fierle-Hedrick (MPhil, Cantab / Program Manager at Free Arts NYC) – is also currently working towards publishing conference papers in the form of an edited book.