COST Action CA18126 – Writing Urban Places

New Narratives of the
European City

Latest Updates
March 6, 2024
In September 2024, the University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, will host the interdisciplinary conference “City Streets 6” with the theme “Architecture as Infrastructure – Toward Sustainable, Inclusive and Beautiful City Streets.” The conference aims to highlight architecture’s role in creating additional values, meaning, and community-based quality in city streets...
March 3, 2024
A reflection on Delft by Sílvia Quinteiro. Sílvia was in Delft during the Closing Symposium: Writing Urban Places, June 2023. In a late October afternoon, I stroll through Delft. I leave the center behind and follow along the canals, traversing the circles that shape the city. In the center, monuments and historic buildings; surrounding it,...
February 16, 2024
Second year, group 26, workshop by Lorin Niculae In Bucharest, Romania, a group of 33 architecture students used the Repository 49 Methods and Assignments for Writing Urban Places to analyse the city through various lenses. The group have been introduced to the repository by Writing Urban Places member Lorin Niculae, Associate Professor at the Basics of Architectural Design Dept. at “Ion Mincu” University of...
February 5, 2024
Mabel Cheung As part of my master’s education in TU Delft’s architecture track in the studio of Methods of Analysis and Imagination, my colleagues and I spent two weeks in Tallinn, Estonia in October of 2023. In those two weeks we completed fieldwork, interviews, archival research, disciplinary analysis, and plenty more. As a method of...
February 1, 2024
Editors of this issue: Angeliki Sioli, Jeremy Hawkins, Vincent Cellucci, Klaske Havik Deadline: 2 images by February 20, 2024. Through poems, perhaps more than through recollections,we touch the ultimate poetic depth of space.—Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations...
December 7, 2023
Following Jorge Mejía Hernández’s initiative, Working Group 1, which was in charge of scientific communication, invited several Action members to record their thoughts and findings in videos. The goal was to use movies as a communication medium to reach a wider audience. In his opening remarks at the Bucharest Film Event, part of the National...

New Narratives of the European City

Writing Urban Places proposes an innovative investigation and implementation of a process for developing human understanding of communities, their society, and their situatedness, by narrative methods. It focuses particularly on the potential of narrative methods for urban development in European medium-sized cities.

By recognising the value of local urban narratives – stories rich in information regarding citizens socio-spatial practices, perceptions and expectations – the Action aims to articulate a set of concrete literary devices within a host of spatial disciplines; bringing together scientific research in the fields of literary studies, urban planning and architecture; and positioning this knowledge vis-à-vis progressive redevelopment policies carried out in medium-sized cities in Europe.

Working Groups

WG 1 – Science Communication

Working Group 1 is responsible for the overall communication and output of the initiative, via the dissemination of the status…

WG 2 – Theoretical Framework

Working Group 2 is concerned with how theoretical reflections can stimulate the thinking and praxis of narrating urban places of medium-sized…

WG 3 – Methodological Framework

The objectives of WG3 include the investigation and development of appropriate analytical and projective methods to understand narratives…

WG 4 – Fieldwork

The core of WG4 fieldwork’s activities is site-specific research. Each study consists of two phases, an analytical and a projective phase…

}