#1: Reimagining Urban Public Spaces

with Luisa Bravo, City Space Architecture
Bologna, Italy

What makes cities urban, you might find asking yourself from time to time. Whatever you find appropriate a definition, it most likely has something to do with urban public spaces.

There is no way of not addressing issues around urban public spaces when discussing reimagining cities as they are key for healthy, cities.

One of the most motivated people working in urban public spaces I met over the years is Luisa Bravo. Luisa is based in Bologna, Italy, among many other things, and is the founder and president of City Space Architecture. She is the person behind the Museo Spazio Pubblico, the museum for public space, editor in chief of the Journal of Public Space which she publishes with UN-Habitat and, not least, runs the Public Space Academy, an educational programme on, you might have guessed it, public space. In our conversation we talk about teenage memories of Italian public spaces, Jan Gehl’s studies in the 60s and 70s, why Bologna has too many tables and chairs standing around, why public space and a museum dedicated to it in the suburbs matter and much more.

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This episode was published on September 2023.