The Symposium | Alpine Landscapes in Transformation: Infrastructure, Culture, and Climate will be held 12-13 May 2022 at the Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies, ETH Zürich. Climate change, energy transition, urbanization, and industrialization have and will have tremendous effects on the Alpine landscape. Located at the crossroads of Europe, the transformations of this fragile environment need to be questioned. The symposium brings young researchers together with experts from practice, research, and the arts in a broad discussion about the past, present, and future of this unique landscape.
Abstract submission deadline 17 December 2021.
The aim of the research workshop is to gather perspectives on the transformations of Alpine landscapes to complete the panel discussions held on the second afternoon. Contributions to the workshop should specifically tackle this topic in relation to industrialisation, infrastructure construction, climate change, or the cultural adaptations they require. These relations and interactions can be seen in the form of competition, passive coexistence, or symbiosis, but may also very well be proposals for alternatives in the form of projects.
The contributions must be aimed at one of the workshops listed below:
- Shaping nations and shaping perception
- Transformation and conflict
- Emerging symbioses
- Projections and alternatives
- Open Workshop
For each workshop, 3 participants will be selected for a 15-minute presentation. This will be followed by an open discussion, moderated by a guest critic. The organisers retain the option of setting up one or several additional thematic workshops, based on submissions.
Please send the following to alpensymposium@arch.ethz.ch, latest by the 17th of December 2021:
-
Title of presentation
-
Choice of thematic workshop
-
Institutional affiliation of the author(s)
-
Abstract (up to 300 words)
-
Short bio (up to 150 words)
-
Contact details
Key Dates
-
Publication call for abstracts: 12.10.2021
-
Submission deadline (abstracts): 17.12.2021
-
Notification of acceptance: end of January 2022
-
Submission of presentation: 10.05.2022
-
Research workshops: 12.-13.05.2022
-
Round tables and keynote: 13.05.2022
Description of the thematic workshops
1. Shaping nation and shaping perception
Alpine passes, tunnels, or hydropower works have been narrowly intertwined with nation-building. These infrastructural works have historically positioned the Alps and the Alpine countries as both natural frontiers and points of passage, just as they have shaped discourses on national identity. Each project redefines the geopolitical relevance of a portion of territory in relation to the neighbouring countries and regions as if to constantly reconstitute a shimmering mosaic. The workshop embeds infrastructure works in larger political, territorial, or legal strategies, assessing the agency of the landscape in those projects.
2. Transformation and conflict
This workshop investigates the perceived destructive nature of industry and infrastructure construction. Landscape, as common ground, is the place where conflicts about its variegated uses, worldviews, and projected states play out. The multi-scalar dimension of infrastructure or industrial ventures brings global or transnational networks with very local specificities into immediate contact. The workshop focuses on the conflicts that arise from this friction: how are they perceived, contested, negotiated? Are the resolutions of the conflicts necessarily a zero-sum game?
3. Emerging Symbioses
Material interventions in the Alpine landscape can generate major disturbances over scales, time, and species. Whilst some relations are lost, new relations emerge, some of which can be seen as symbiotic (both materially and culturally). This workshop explores the nature and development of such relations: intentional or unexpected, transitory or permanent, well-known or experimental. Can they inform us in more detail about the position and effects of human interventions? And can they be used as models for further developments?
4. Projections and Alternatives
Being mainly project-oriented, the spatial disciplines (architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and planning) have an operative role in suggesting ways of integrating industry or infrastructure into the Alpine landscape. The intent of this workshop is twofold. It calls designers and planners working on such transformations to the stand, to share their vision. It also aims at creating a public sphere for the discussions around recently completed projects, to be used as “lessons learned”.
5. Open Workshop
If your research relates to the overall topic of the symposium but less to the individual thematic workshops, please submit your abstract to the open workshop. Depending on the amount of submissions, several open worshops may take place. Papers submitted here are assessed in terms of interest
regarding the overall topic of the symposium.
Keywords: Alpine landscapes, landscape transformations, infrastructure, culture, climate
Image by Julita.
