Recent increase of significance of events and experiences for urban planning and economic development has coincided with the multiplication of agents, tools and aims of storytelling about city. This way phenomenon of excursion has opened horizons for re-thinking the issues of economic growth, political communities and social engagement and for re-framing them in specifically urban context. Should we assume that the boom of excursions and guides implies destruction of prevalent monopolies of meaning making and hence challenges dominant rules of valorization of city environment? Or vice a versa does it reinforce prevalent meaning making monopolies by translating formerly underrepresented stances and communities into conventional form? Is it by chance that today enhanced performativity of urban and regional space dramatically coincides also with spectacular entrepreneurial militarization and hybrid warfare?

Such questions make excursion a perfect case for defining relations between visual and narrative elements of newly emerging modes of power and for discussing reasonable degrees of city’s transparency and performativity.

Curators: Siarhei Liubimau ir Indrė Ruseckaitė

The talks are held at the National Art Gallery (NDG), Konstitucijos av. 22, Vilnius, 8.00 p.m. The talks will be held in English and Lithuanian.

Entrance is free of charge.

The events are recorded and the videos are placed online at www.archfondas.lt.

While creating the society of wellbeing in western countries, a special attention is paid to education of the young generation. In search for democratization of society, educational architecture becomes one of the most relevant tools. It is quite a paradox that Lithuania, undergoing the post-colonial processes, still pays insufficient attention to architecture of its educational institutions, while at the same time declaring the aspirations for development of the wellbeing and democratic society. Contemporary educational systems are dissociated from spaces designated for such processes. Today, quality of a school building is mostly defined by the values of thermal resistance of its partitions. The essential hygiene of study spaces is a necessary, although just the initial step in the process. In order to actually realize transformations of educational spaces in a creative, rational and high quality manner, analysis of foreign experiences is a must.

This lecture series of the Architecture [Discussion] Fund is aimed to encourage the case practice studies of the old western democracies and evoke extensive discussions among experts in different areas. It is believed that lectures may attract the attention of architecture, education and public administration specialists responsible for development and transformations of educational spaces, as well as representatives of different communities.

Curators: Dolf Broekhuizen, Liutauras Nekrošius

Poster illustrator: Giedrius Bugenis

The talks are held at 8.00 p.m. at the National Art Gallery (NDG), Konstitucijos av. 22, Vilnius. Entrance is free of charge. The events are recorded and the videos are placed online at www.archfondas.lt.

The conversations are arranged in collaboration with VGTU Faculty of Architecture.