urbanHIST is a multidisciplinary research and Training programme run by Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Germany), Universidad de Valladolid (Spain), Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach (Slovakia) and Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (Sweden) in cooperation with 13 Partner organisations and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It develops and sustainably promotes a joint understanding of 20th century urbanism in Europe. 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESR) will be working in 8 thematic fields. The work of the ESR is organised in eight thematic fields:
• Historiography of European urbanism
• Urbanism, political and development strategies
• Public infrastructure, social housing and evolution of cities
• Urbanism, heritage and urban planning in Europe
• Central Europe since the fall of Austro-Hungarian Empire through dictatorships of the 20th century to European Union
• Urbanism, architecture and building of national identity
• The establishment of urbanism as profession and discipline
• Planning for the growth society and the emergence of sustainability.
objectives:
Role of urbanism in the 20th century
Throughout the 20th century, urban planning constituted itself as an important tool to spatially direct social developments. This applies to Europe more than to any other continent. Urban planning contributed significantly to the emergence of the welfare state, strong economies and a balanced settlement structure. However, urban planning also caused suppression and destruction of some population groups, alongside natural and cultural resources. With the collapse of socialism in 1990, and the increasing importance of the EU, the 20th century ended with a multi-layered convergence in regard to the implementation of urban planning as a regulative and shaping instrument.
Contemporary historiographic approach to urbanism
Most studies on 20th century urban planning adopt national perspectives, while studies aiming to provide an overview focus on several core countries with special attention to the generation of planning innovations in advanced capitalist countries. The mainstream planning historiography mostly ignores not only a majority of European countries, but also important aspects of the history of urbanism like the function of urban planning as an instrument of nation-building, as a resource of power for dictatorships or as vehicle to homogenise the development of bigger areas of the continent. Furthermore, methodological approaches are very heterogeneous.
Thus, urbanHIST follows an approach which responds to this criticism.
