Design and Peace: InterviewsParticipation in the International Aino and Alvar Aalto Design Colloquium with the support of Alvar Aalto Foundation in Finland. The colloquium took place in the summer of 2019 during a period of two days and was held at the town hall in Säynätsalo which lies in the very heart of Finland. This town hall (1949–1952) was designed by Alvar Aalto and is beautifully situated on an island in Lake Päijänne which is a part of the municipality of Jyväskylä. “…It has been a remarkable summer for the foundation and we’ve done some wonderful things in many different locations. The International Aino and Alvar Aalto Design Colloquium in June was a new kind of challenge for the events team. Design seminars have a his- tory that started already in 1995 when the first design seminar Design for Architecture was held in Jyväskylä. Altogether we have had eight (1995–2016) well pre- pared international seminars on design practice and theory. Though they had all been obvious successes there was a lot of talk about whether this kind of large scale public events had come to a critical point? Certainly getting people to travel from all around the world, to come to Finland and participate in a seminar for three days, had become more and more difficult. When we in the foundation started discussing the next seminar for 2019 we came up with an idea to gather a small preliminary steering group, to think about new ways to organise an event around design. This group consisted of Nina Heikkonen, Pentti Kareoja, Jukka Savolainen, Ilkka Suppanen and myself. One idea was for it to be invite only, with no audience present. Another idea was to make it a closed circuit colloquium with discussions instead of lectures and workshops. The third new idea was to make a book about it during the colloquium. Eventually the steering group was extended with Marko Ahtisaari, Paola Antonelli, Heli Leinonkoski and Suvi Saloniemi. (…) I also want to thank all members of the steering group for their generous way of using their time and effort to make the event as good as it was and the City of Jyväskylä for its major contribution.” [Tommi Lindh CEO / Alvar Aalto Foundation] In: The International Aino and Alvar Aalto Design Colloquium 2019, Säynätsalo, Finland. (Org.). Design and Peace:. 1ed.Helsinki: Alvar Aalto Foundation, 2019, v. 1, p. 95-97. <https://www.alvaraalto.fi/content/uploads/2019/11/DesignPeace_web.pdf>
Public Spaces in Minas Gerais State, Brazil: A chronology on planned visions in the city of Belo Horizonte The article explores distinct appropriations of public spaces beyond the planned visions in Minas Gerais, particularly in its Capital, Belo Horizonte. The study focuses on certain moments of the development process since its creation as a new planned city in the end of the 19th Century up to current days facing pandemic times. In this process, concepts related to urban planning ideas were sought by governments considering demands imposed. Between ideal versus real even with the intention of control the use of public spaces was defined by communities. The key issue as a contribution to this pre-event of the FUPS 2021 2nd Conference is to reflect about the concepts of public space embedded in the urban proposals since the creation of the city and their materialisation over time in Belo Horizonte. From past to present with a chronological sense, first focusing on the initial plan defined by a commission of technicians was presented. This period began in 1892, with the work of the Study Commission for the new capital, changed to the Construction Commission in 1894, until the inauguration of the city on December 12, 1897. Next the consolidation process of the city as the new capital in the 1930/1940s was explored. At the end of this period a revision of the initial plan was proposed. Between the 1940s and 1970s the ideal was linked to the Modern Movement with the realisation of the Pampulha neighbourhood and other modern urban arrangements. As an inflection point, in the middle of this period, in 1964, the military coup d’état consolidated restrictions of democracy, already since the beginning of the 1960s. During the 1960s and 1970s a new master plan was concepted to the modern metropolis that was constituted. Next during the 1980s and 2000s the concern with preservation of the Cultural Heritage was placed as well a new master plan was developed with community participation. In this period, a new Federal Constitution was implemented, with the end of the military dictatorship, in 1988, and the democracy reinstalled in Brazil. The following passages inserted the ideas of urban planning in the 21st Century with the paradigm of building cities for people in the first place. Another master plan was developed in this period. Currently, these Covid- 19 pandemic times with lockdown, added with several setbacks in the federal government, create new challenges to thinking about public spaces with planning. These issues are addressed in order to continue previous urban studies in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Written with grants from CAPES, CNPq and FAPEMIG. Keywords: Urban Planning, Urban History, Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Public Spaces. https://acris.aalto.fi/ws/portalfiles/portal/99031381/FUPS2021_Proceedings.pdf Ver: Ranjbar, E., & Pourjafar, M. (Eds.) (2022). Proceeding of the Second International Conference on Future of Urban Public Spaces (FUPS2021). http://fupsconference.com/uploads/uploads/downloads/cbcc2c3f1f85bbc3480c216e0d81f5e2.pdf