A travel journal on Athens, the result of collaboration among three capstones

This creative, cross-cutting project was carried out by six students from the Urban Planning Programme. Having begun work in three different teams, they realised that the issues their respective projects addressed were remarkably similar, so they decided to do a joint field study. This journal was produced after a week surveying their chosen cities of Athens and Eleusis, from 5 to 12 June 2022.

The six students began their group projects in October 2021. With other students, Adèle Bergna and Tahani El Idrissi Zribai were working with Plaine Commune Développement on the urban plan for the former AB studios in the Nozal Front Populaire urban development zone; Diane Bittar and Noémie Camblong were investigating the role of culture in improving the coherence of urban transformations through Saint-Denis’s bid to become the European Capital of Culture 2028; and Justin Félix and Inès Huot de Saint Albin were working with SOLIDEO (the Olympic infrastructure delivery agency) on the urban integration of the Porte de la Chapelle Arena. After several months working on their respective team projects, they realised that the three teams had similar questions.

“It occurred to us that each project focused on the same geographical area, which was undergoing profound urban change and was facing issues common to each project (the north of the 18th arrondissement, Plaine Saint-Denis, and Plaine Commune). So it seemed apt to share our approaches—a combination of infrastructural, cultural, geographical, sociological, strategic, heritage and citizen-focused approaches—and our working methods. We felt that it was an opportunity to decompartmentalise our thinking and to complement the studies of each group.”

Athens stood out as the ideal case study. It was the first ever European Capital of Culture and one of its suburban cities is to hold the title again in 2023. Its urban fabric is made up of brownfields in the city centre and dense suburbs that have undergone regeneration strategies focused on the cultural and creative industries. Finally, as an Olympic city, Athens has major culture and sports facilities that the city tries to leverage at multiple levels without neglecting questions of uses and citizen ownership. The students included certain cities bordering the capital in their field study, since their cross-cutting approach would allow them to cover sites in the suburbs (Eleusis, European Capital of Culture 2023) as well as the city centre. The question of the legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games addressed by SOLIDEO ties in with that of the legacy of the European Capitals of Culture addressed by the city of Saint-Denis. Sports and cultural practices also raise intersecting issues that they wished to analyse jointly. Athens therefore made for a solid field study, covering the various transformation, urban regeneration and cultural development schemes and methods employed, but also the role that civil society tries to play in these governance arrangements.

This travel journal, the outcome of the joint field study, showcases the results of the students’ collaboration on urban transformation issues through the lens of cultural and heritage strategies. It provides valuable material for each of the team projects, but also for the Urban School, since it demonstrates a novel approach to team projects.

Read the travel journal (FR)