City on Display

<p><em>The City on Display: Architecture Festivals and the Urban Commons</em> reflects on the biennials triennials and other festivals of architecture and design that have been held over the last two decades as they expand and transform in response to the exigencies of ‘planetary urbanisation’. Joel Robinson examines the development of these large-scale international and perennial exhibitions as they address such challenges as urban regeneration heritage preservation climate change and the migration crisis.</p><p>Homing in on examples of festivals in Venice Rotterdam Oslo Tallinn Sharjah Seoul Shenzhen and Hong Kong the author describes how they alter the public spaces that host them either through civic boosterism and gentrification on the one hand or through a reassertion of the urban commons and the right to the city on the other hand. He attempts to thematise the architecture festival's relationship with the city and interrogate its potential as a forum for global debate about the emergencies of the urban condition.</p><p>This book will be beneficial for students and academics of architecture and urbanism and especially those who have an interest in how the city gets exhibited at such festivals and even reimagined as something other than it currently is. </p>