Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2008, Qupperneq 47

Article | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 05 2008 | B15
On Saturday May 10, the second half of a two-day
international conference ‘Reinventing Harbour
Cities – Urban Planning and Art in Public Space’
takes place at the Nordic House. Organised by
CIA.IS (Centre for Icelandic Art) in cooperation
with the Iceland Academy of the Arts and the Nor-
dic House, the aim is to open public discussion
on urban planning. The future of Reykjavík as a
modern harbour city will be debated and the role
that artists and designers can play in urban devel-
opment discussed.
The conference brings together groups with
interest in Reykjavík’s development, emphasizing
that the city’s reconstruction is a shared responsi-
bility of policymakers, corporations, urban plan-
ners, artists, and individuals. The goal is to try to
find common interests between people working
in the private and public sector as well as local
residents, artists and architects and to offer a
forum for opinion making. Speakers will come
from across the globe and include Jürgen Bruns-
Berentelg, CEO of HafenCity Hamburg; Vito Ac-
conci, an architect and designer from New York;
and FREEE, an art collective from London. The
organisers, Christian Schoen and Shauna Laurel
Jones from CIA, stress that all these different as-
pects are important and will hopefully lead to cre-
ative discussions that can help improve the city.
Creating a New Image
“I think it is necessary to bring in foreign knowl-
edge and foreign expertise, look at foreign ex-
amples and different approaches,” says Christian
Schoen, director of CIA. He sees a growing in-
terest in the field of urban planning and names
the discussion on the future of Vatnsmýrin area
(where Reykjavík’s domestic airport is located) as
an example. He’s satisfied with the international
planning competition for the area and how the
proposals were introduced to the public, although
all future development plans are still very uncer-
tain, due to political disputes. He emphasizes that
the public should be involved and have a say in
how the city develops: “Public space is always a
political matter, because it belongs to everybody
and everybody should know about what’s going
on. We’re talking about our future and our kids’
future. It is a long process and we should really
spend good portion of time on discussing how to
develop our city.”
In recent decades Reykjavík has seen great
economic growth and the cityscape has rapidly
changed. Introduction and consultation with lo-
cals though is often missing. “To have a public dis-
cussion is the first step. That means that everyone
involved in the city-making process has to take
the public’s opinions into consideration. That’s
the aim of this conference. That’s why we invited
professionals from different groups, like creative
people working for landscape architects and ar-
chitects of course
As the city expands, mistakes have been
made and what the city seems to need the most
today is a clear development policy. Empty build-
ings on Laugavegur and Hverfisgata are depress-
ing symbols of how the policy-making is stuck be-
tween the private and public sector without any
clear solution of how the centre should develop.
Schoen points out that what is obviously lacking
is a sustainable master plan for the future. “We’re
talking about identity and city planning, not short-
term interests of investors. The Concert and Con-
ference Centre down by the harbour is in my view
a fantastic landmark-creating opportunity, but
that is not enough. It is important to think of the
whole structure and that, of course, is of public
interest”, he adds and continues: “We need to ask
ourselves: How do we see the future of the city in
say 2050? What do we want to create? What kind
of image? Today, I don’t see the answers.”

www.cia.is/news/conference.htm
Reinventing Reykjavík
“Public space is always a
political matter, because
it belongs to everybody
and everybody should
know about what’s going
on. We’re talking about
our future and our kids’
future. It is a long pro-
cess and we should really
spend good portion of
time on discussing how
to develop our city.”
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