Introduction: Cristina Steingräber
Talk: Jacopo Galli
Panel Discussion with Andrea Fantin (Urbicide Task Force)
Moderation: Raj Hegde

Cities around the world today are subject to large-scale destruction. The current number of people losing their homes and livelihoods is staggering and growing. The most massive destruction here in Germany occurred during the Second World War with the bombing of the city of Dresden, which had 650,000 inhabitants in 1945. In the detonation of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima in the same year, 345,000 people lost their homes. More recently, however, the near-universal destruction of urban habitat is affecting ever larger parts of the global population. The number of displaced people forced to flee cities such as Aleppo (4.6 million), Mosul (1.8 million), Sanaa (3.5 million) or Kiev (2.3 million), but also due to climatic threats, is alarming – and its trend is increasing. The destroyed cities need structured and, above all, sustainable reconstruction.

With the aim of modelling design factors – based on the amount of catastrophic impacts on urban life – the new ArchiTangle publication “Cities Under Pressure” presents design strategies for dealing with cities destroyed by wars and disasters. “Cities Under Pressure” is the result of a long-standing research initiative at the Università Iuav di Venezia (IUAV). The publication presents new urban habitats that abandon rigid urban planning schemes in favour of growing evolutionary mechanisms and can develop the potential to create a resilient and peaceful future. The publication was recently presented at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Jacopo Galli holds a doctorate in architecture and a professorship at the Università Iuav di Venezia (IUAV). Since 2014, he has been working on issues of urban reconstruction after extreme events, including as a member of the Urbicide Task Force and in his advisory role for various projects such as the World Bank’s Building for Peace programme. He is the author of the new ArchiTangle publication “Cities Under Pressure”, which presents many years of research on dealing with destroyed urban structures.

Andrea Fantin is a PhD student at the Università Iuav di Venezia (IUAV). His research interests include urban metabolisms and ecological change and the circular economy in relation to space and architecture. In addition to his work for the Urbicide Task Force, he has been working since 2018 with TSPA, a Berlin-based sustainable urban planning firm, to support the spatial planning and design industry through the harnessing of GIS and data flow analysis.

Cristina Steingräber has a PhD in architectural history and is a publisher. In 2019, she founded ArchiTangle, a Berlin-based tech start-up and independent publisher focused on knowledge transfer and projects of social relevance in the field of architecture. Previously, she was, among other things, programme director and managing director of Hatje Cantz, a leading global publisher of fine art, photography and architecture, for more than a decade.

Raj Hedge is an engineer, digital strategist and enthusiastic moderator. Since 2022, he has been a digital consultant at the global consultancy Roland Berger. As an enthusiast for the use of new technologies in urban planning, and for communicating urgent topics to a broad audience, he is the perfect ArchiTangle Talks moderator.