DOCOMOMO E-proceedings

SOUTH CITY - Modernist Urbanism in the Southern Hemisphere: Past, Present, Future
Symposium, January 22—23, 2009
Edinburgh College of Art – University of Edinburgh

Download the proceedings of the Symposium

Held in Edinburgh in late January 2009, the “South City” Symposium sought to provoke a stimulating interaction between the heritage and future of modernist urbanism in the southern hemisphere. Organized jointly by Docomomo International Committee on Urbanism Landscape, the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies, Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the University of Edinburgh, it brought together a range of experts on urbanism in South America, Africa and Southern Asia, together with a range of original films, to pose the question of what contribution the considerable legacy of modernist planning and architecture, dating mainly from the postwar years, can make to the challenges of the vastly expanded urban growth of the C21.

The event opened on the evening of Thursday 22 January with a keynote address at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) by Frederico de Holanda (Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo), one of the foremost experts on the history and development of the Brazilian capital, focusing on how its revolutionary utopian design concept, with all its myths and its vernacular life, has fared in the decades since its initial launch.

Prof. Holanda also contributed a research paper to the all-day session at University of Edinburgh Architecture on Friday 23 January, along with Edinburgh-based international experts on the modernist city in South America, Africa and Asia: the 23 January session was also, appropriately, the venue for the launch of a new Docomomo International Southern Hemisphere liaison group, chaired by Ola Uduku of ECA, aimed at helping expand Docomomo’s activities beyond its current predominantly Northern Hemisphere focus.