Abstract
While traditional forms of urban planning are oriented towards the future, the recent turn towards experimental and challenge-led urban developments is characterized by an overarching presentism. We explore in this article how an experimental approach to urban planning can consider the long-term through setting-up ‘conversations with a future situation.' In doing so, we draw on a unique experiment: Råängen, a piece of farmland in Lund (Sweden) owned by the Cathedral. The plot is part of Brunnshög, a large urban development program envisioned to accommodate homes, workspaces, and world-class research centers in the coming decades. We trace how Lund Cathedral became an unusual developer involved in ‘planning for thousand years,' deployed a set of art commissions to allow reflections about values, belief, time, faith, and became committed to play a central role in the development process. The art interventions staged conversations with involved actors as well as publics geographically and temporally far away. The Råängen case illustrates how long-term futures can be fruitfully brought to the present through multiple means of imagination. A key insight for urban planning is how techniques of financial discounting and municipal zoning plans could be complemented with trust in reflective conversations in which questions are prioritized over answers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 249-262 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Urban Planning |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was conducted as part of the CLIMAGINARIES research project funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas (project no. 2017–01924). The authors wish to extend their thanks to the interviewees for providing us access to the fascinating case of Råängen, to two anonymous reviewers and the Academic Editors for their helpful suggestions, as well as to Edward Jacobson, Paul Graham Raven, Graeme Macdonald, Alexandra Nikoleris, Wytske Versteeg, Lisette van Beek and Ludwig Bengtsson Sonesson for valuable input and comments on earlier versions of the article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal).
Funding
This research was conducted as part of the CLIMAGINARIES research project funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas (project no. 2017–01924). The authors wish to extend their thanks to the interviewees for providing us access to the fascinating case of Råängen, to two anonymous reviewers and the Academic Editors for their helpful suggestions, as well as to Edward Jacobson, Paul Graham Raven, Graeme Macdonald, Alexandra Nikoleris, Wytske Versteeg, Lisette van Beek and Ludwig Bengtsson Sonesson for valuable input and comments on earlier versions of the article.
Keywords
- Art
- Deep-time organizations
- Experimentation
- Long-term
- Planning
- Sweden