Commons: Public Spaces After Socialism

Please join the East Central European Center and the Harriman Institute for a two day conference organized by Alan Timberlake and Angela Wheeler.

For a century or more, citizens of the Eastern Bloc viewed public space as the primary setting for urban life. Socialist architects and planners envisioned common space as a transformative cultural force, deploying “social condensers” meant to break down inequitable hierarchies and foster a sense of the collective. Private property effectively disappeared from view. But just as the nationalization of property transformed cities at the opening of the twentieth century, so too did privatization at the century’s close. This two-day colloquium on “Commons: Public Space in the Post-Socialist World” will explore the cultural, political, and socioeconomic implications of post-socialist urban transformation.

From the Harriman Institute.