John Palmesino
Advising researcher Design / NEUTRALITY_Polity and Space in the Post-Eurocentric City
research@territorialagency.com
www.territorialagency.com
John Palmesino is the initiator and advising researcher on the project NEUTRALITY_Polity and Space in the Post-Eurocentric City.
John Palmesino is an Italian architect and urbanist, born in Switzerland in 1970.
He has established Territorial Agency in 2007 together with Ann-Sofi Rönnskog.
Territorial Agency is an independent organisation that innovatively promotes and works for sustainable territorial transformations. Territorial Agency works to strengthen the capacity of local and international communities in comprehensive spatial transformation management. Territorial Agency’s projects channel available spatial resources towards the development of their full potential. Territorial Agency’s work builds on wide stake-holder networks. It combines analysis, projects, advocacy and action.
He is the initiator of the multidisciplinary research project ‘Neutrality’. The research investigates the relations between architecture, the processes of construction of the inhabited space and the forms of polity in the 21st Century. The project analyses the modalities of operation of the clusters of introverted and almost self-referential institutional, economical, political, military, cultural innovation spaces and enclosed knowledge circuits that appear to be the critical hallmarks of today’s city and cultural climate. He is conducting his researches on neutrality as a device of transformation and control of the contemporary inhabited space for his PhD at the Research Architecture Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London.
He is the recipient of a 2009 Graham Foundation Grant award for his researches on the ‘Architecture of UN peace-keeping missions’.
He is in charge of the Master course at the Research Architecture Centre, where he is leading a research on the spatial transformations related to the operations of International organisations, Intergovernmental Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
He has taught together with Prof. Irit Rogoff a MA course on Geographies at the Visual Cultures departments, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Head of research at ETH Zurich, Studio Basel / Contemporary City Institute, between 2003 and 2007. ETH Studio Basel is a research institute for the investigation of the transformation patterns of the city of the 21st Century, established by
the Pritzker Prize winner architects and professors Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. He has managed the transition of ETH Studio Basel into a full Research Institute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, establishing the research agenda and methodology. He has lead the Institute researches on a series of international cities, also in conjunction with Harvard School of Design, where he helped establishing the Independent Thesis Programme lead by Herzog and de Meuron, working on collaborative projects with ETH Studio Basel. He has managed the works for the publication of the research ‘Switzerland–An Urban Portrait’. He has curated the participation of the Institute at the 10th Architecture Biennale in Venice, 2006.
He has co-founded multiplicity, with Stefano Boeri. multiplicity is a research network that explores contemporary territorial transformations. The Milan – based organisation deals with contemporary urbanism, representation of inhabited landscape transformation, visual arts and general culture. multiplicity is a multidisciplinary network of architects, urbanists, social scientists, photographers, filmmakers and visual artists. Co-founded with Stefano Boeri in 1996, multiplicity has addressed a number of contemporary controversial territorial transformations. The research projects and interventions have been spanning across various disciplines, with major presence in the art world. Main projects include USE Uncertain states of Europe (Mutations, Triennale di Milano), SOLID SEA (documenta11), Border Devices (Biennale di Venezia), The Road Map (KW Berlin).
He is author of several territorial research studies, with particular attention to the transformations in the general European context and the Swiss urban structure in particular. His research focuses on the representation of self-organisation processes in the construction of the contemporary urban condition.
He is on the International Advisory Board for the Sustainable Development of Mexico City.
He is a member of METROBASEL, Platform for the development of the Basel metropolitan region.
He is on the Advisory Board of AISS Arts in Social Structures, an international NGO funded and run by artists.
He has lectured widely in Europe, in Japan, Australia and in the US.
Academic affiliations to the AA Architectural Association School of Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, ETH Zurich, EPFL Lausanne, Royal Academy of Arts Copenhagen, Politecnico di Milano, IUAV Venezia, University of Genova, and at the Harvard School of Design, with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
He is co-author of ‘USE- Uncertain states of Europe’, Milano 2003; ‘MUTATIONS’, Barcelona 2000; ‘Lessico Postfordista-Scenari della mutazione’, Milano 2001. He has published several essays and articles in the major architecture and urban magazines (Domus, Abitare, Archis, Volume, StadtBauWelt, etc’).
Born in Switzerland, Italian Citizen
PhD (in course), Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London
Diploma Unit Master, AA Architectural Association, School of Architecture, London
History and Theory lecturer, AA Architectural Association, School of Architecture, London
Visiting Tutor, MA Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London
Head of Research, ETH Studio Basel–Contemporary City Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Co-founder of PALMESINO RÖNNSKOG Territorial Agency
Founding member of multiplicity, an international research network
Unfinishable Markermeer – The Markermeer Plan, 2005, ongoing
Territorial Agency has designed the first integrated vision for the Markermeer, in the Netherlands. The project is commissioned by the Dutch Ministry for Water and Transports – Rijkswaterstaat and addresses changing environmental, climatic and territorial dynamics of the Netherlands’ fifth large polder, and its surrounding areas. The project covers an area of more than 2500 km2 and proposes innovative water management systems in order to improve the ecological quality of the region. At the same time, the project envisions the creation of a new large archipelago of islands set to protect the existing dikes and create new environments for the development of natural reserves, the metropolitan connection of Amsterdam and Almere and of Lelystad. The project reasserts Amsterdam’s connections to its natural space of reference and envisions a coherent spatial development for its metropolitan region. The project brings together multiple stake holders, from local, regional and national governments, to NGOs and private actors.
The research project analysis the architecture of neutrality, investigating non-transformative spatial practices in the contemporary city to reveal the changing links between the form of the inhabited space and the form of contemporary polities. Neutrality is a research on transformation and control of contemporary space: international, local, urban, humanitarian, political, conflictual, economical, financial, military, institutional, natural, global, individual. We think of neutrality as a mean to manage transitions and conflicts in the contemporary cities, as a dispositif of change of the contemporary space, tuned to balance the conflictual forces that flare up in almost every human settlement. The research maps a number of spatial organisations that are linked to neutrality, from the UN Peace keeping missions, to the Swiss border system, to the extra-territorial enclaves of the Middle-East, to the special economic zones in Asia. The research has been exhibited at the Fri-Art Centre of Contemporary Arts in Fribourg, Switzerland, several articles and essays have been published in the major architectural and cultural magazines in Europe and the US. It is currently being developed at the Research Architecture Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Water is rapidly becoming the central issue in the management of inhabited territories. The changing conditions relating to its ownership, protection from shortages and excesses, disputes on sovereignty and underwater oil and mineral resources exploitations, are modifying the perception of the geography of large parts of the Northern European regions. The research project addresses these themes through the investigation of a number of case studies, from the oil resources off the coasts of Norway, to the disputed continental shelf under the North Pole, to the waterways accesses of Russia on the Baltic. materials from the research project have been exhibited in Philadelphia, Switzerland and Cairo and presented in Philadelphia, at the Berlin transmediale and in London The research project has been nominated for the Zumtobel Award for Sustainable Architecture 2009-2010.
Cohabitation, with all its conveniences and accompanied by all its struggles, has for centuries been the main purpose of the construction of cities. The very act of construction yet implies separation, the set up of differences and demarcations, it implies making differences visible, not allowing others in. What is the analytical difference on the contemporary territory if viewed from the resort, the lab, the campus, spaces cut off where specialised, genre discourses and focussed activities are carried out? How can we understand its operation amongst the multiple clusters of introverted, almost self-referential economical, political, cultural innovation spaces and enclosed knowledge circuits that appear to be the critical hallmarks of today’s city and cultural climate? The research analyses a number of enclosed areas –from the tourist resorts in the Canary Islands, to the ex-pat enclaves in the Arab Gulf, to refugee camps in South Africa and to hi-tech campuses in Central Europe– and the modalities by which they contribute to the economical and cultural innovation in the contemporary city.
At the brake of the 21st Century, urbanisation problems are a key issue worldwide. ETH Studio Basel was established in 1999 by the Pritzker Prize winners Prof. Jacques Herzog and Prof. Pierre de Meuron, as a research Institute of the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich to precisely describe the urbanisation processes that have so radically changed the Swiss territory. “Switzerland – An Urban Portrait” stated an independent research structure that questioned the issue on how can contemporary urban structures be understood and interpreted in architectural and spatial terms. Its investigations based on wide and deep-span interests areas, interdisciplinary and perceptive thematics have depicted the image of a highly developed, highly differentiated and completely urbanised territory at the heart of Europe. The ground-breaking research has been published in the highly controversial book “Switzerland – An Urban Portrait” (1000 pages, Birkhäuser, 2005) and has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2006.
The core of the research activities is the detection of traces of urban change in the material space of the inhabited landscape. The research engages the issues of the contemporary urban condition by describing rigorously the modalities of physical transformation in different environments and contexts, in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the issues related to the improvement of the quality of human settlements in the contemporary world and develop novel urbanistic strategies. The investigation is focused on urban regions that are twofold, that are both under the pressure of globalisation and wrought by specific threats. Places that maintain a spin, that are connected to international energy flows, while they persist in evolving their individual inscribed patterns. The ongoing ETH Studio Basel research was initated in 2003 by John Palmesino and has investigated the current state of affairs of Napoli, Hong Kong, Paris, St Petersburg, San Francisco, Detroit and the Canary Islands.
Globalization, standardization, and the high-speed innovations of our current information age are transforming urban centers from London to Los Angeles to Lagos, and more places are becoming more urban, and at a faster pace, than ever before. Mutations is an atlas and analysis of this new urbanization, a survey in the global city at the brink f the 21st Century, the large project joins the visions on Lagos, the Pearl River Delta and on Shopping of Rem Koolhaas’ Harvard project on the City, together with the explorations of the contemporary American city by Sanford Kwinter, Stefano Boeri and multiplicity’s investigations in the emerging geographies of the European city, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist’s work on Rumors and the Sonic City. The exhibition at arc-en-rêve, Bodeaux, TN Probe, Tokyo and at the Raffinerie, Bruxelles is accompanied by a vivid publication, composed of essays and meditations (from a variety of contributors) on the 21stcentury international city.
A multiplicity research on the contemporary urban condition in Europe. A series of study-cases analyses the role of selforganisation processes in the transformation and innovation of the urban environment. European territories are characterised on one side by a vision of unity and stability, on the other by a growing uncertainty on its modes of cohabitation. USE explores how a series of self-organised phenomena are modifying the territories of European cities in a turbulent way. Uncertainty is above all being caused by the resistance of a dominant descriptive paradigm which continues to represent Europe as a continent composed by vast homogeneous and institutionalised areas, crossed by binary oppositions (East/West, South/North) and formed by long-term hierarchical processes. Uncertainty is produced by the incapacity of this paradigm to see and thus represent many of the processes and energies that are actually redrawing the contemporary political and economical geographies of Europe. Different modules of the research explore the different aspects of the European city, its transformation devices and possible future scenarios. The ongoing research is realised through the collaboration of a network of researchers, architects, photographers, geographers and urban planners. The research has been developed in connection with MUTATIONS.
An investigation on the new geopolitical asset of the Mediterranean basin, The intensification of flows of people,goods, information, money, energy, arms etc. is redrawing the map of the Mediterranean Sea, implementing new control and separation techniques that influence not only the social environment but also the figure of this area of the world, surrounded by regions of turmoil and rapid transformation. The new nature of the Mediterranean is explored through different samples of the flows that petrify its identities –immigrants, tourists, oil tankers, military, smugglers… Solid Sea is a multiplicity project for documenta11, Kassel 2002.
John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, North – Escalation, in Deep North, Transmediale Parcours 2, Revolver Publishing: Berlin 2009
John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, North, in K. Feireiss et al (eds.), Architecture of Change 2: Sustainability and Humanity on the Built Environment, Die Gestalten Verlag: Berlin 2009
John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, Towards a Territorial Agency, A case for the Markermeer, special supplement to VOLUME, Archis, Amsterdam 2009
John Palmesino, Uncertain states of Europe, in What is Architecture? Antology Vol. 2, Manggha: Krakow
John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, The Markermeer Plan, Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands, 2007
John Palmesino, Neutralité, Neutralität, Neutralità, Neutralitad, Neutrality, in Sarah Zürcher, Day After Day, Fribourg 2007
John Palmesino, Neutralität, Stadt BauWelt, 2007
John Palmesino, Network of cities, in, Roger Diener, Jacques Herzog, et. al, Switzerland – An Urban Portrait, Birkhäuser: Basel 2005
John Palmesino, Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, Neutrality, in F. Jodice, What We Want, Skira: Milan 2004
John Palmesino et al. USE Uncertain states of Europe, Skira: Milano 2003
John Palmesino, Multiplicity, Solid Sea, in Ursula Biemann (ed.) Geografie. Politics of Mobility, Generali: Vienna 2003
John Palmesino, Self-organisation processes and urban mutations, in Performing the City, Promontorio: Porto 2003
John Palmesino, A Journey through the contemporary urban fields, in Promenade, BDA: Düsseldorf 2002
Stefano Boeri, John Palmesino, Around a Soild Sea. Materials for a research on the flows trough the Mediterranean, Archis September 2002
John Palmesino, Imparare da Kobe: Architetture come servizio, Il Sole 24 ore 10.11.2002
John Palmesino, Paesaggi italiani in trasformazione, Il Sole 24 ore 18.08.2002
John Palmesino, Invisibilità, in Francesco Bonami (ed) EXIT. Nuove geografie della creatività in Italia, Mondadori:Milano 2002
John Palmesino, multiplicity, INERTIA, Neue Horizonte für Zeche Zollverein, in B. Vanderlinden, L, Neri (eds) Was ist Zollverein? Postindustrielle Zukunft!, Entwicklungsgesellschaft Zollverein: Gelsenkirchen 2002
John Palmesino, Double Invisibility: Contemporary Swiss Architecture at the IAF, Paris, Domus 05.2002
John Palmesino, Multiplicity et al. MUTATIONS, TNProbe: Tokyo 2002
John Palmesino, CIttà Globale, in E. Fadini, A. Zanini, Lessico Postfordista. Dizionario di idee della mutazione, Feltrinelli: Milano 2001
John Palmesino, USE, in Rem Koolhaas, Harvard Project on the City, Stefano Boeri, multiplicity, Sanford Kwinter, Hans Ulrich Obrist, MUTATIONS, Actar: Barcelona 2000
John Palmesino, Artificial Life, http://www.useproject.net 11.2000
John Palmesino, Natura perfetta: nuovi paesaggi urbani nelle Alpi svizzere, Il Sole 24 ore 27.11.2000
John Palmesino, Public spaces are flames: an interpretation of the contemporary urban landscapes, http://www.groundcontrol.nl 05.1998
Stefano Boeri, John Palmesino, Giovanni La Varra, Gli spazi pubblici sono delle fiamme. Note per una interpretazione propensionale dei territori della città contemporanea, Paesaggio Urbano, numero monografico 3, 1997
Stefano Boeri, John Palmesino. Bande Percettive, Rivista Tecnica, 12, 1996
John Palmesino, Milano Famagosta an Entropic Space, in Mirko Zardini (ed) Hybrid Parking, ETH-Z: Zurich 1995
Has curated the maps, the diagrams and the chapter on the Northern Milanese area in Stefano Boeri, Arturo Lanzani, Edoardo Marini, Il territorio che cambia. Ambienti, paesaggi ed immagini della regione milanese, AIM
Abitare Segesta: Milano 1993
under construction – Dialogues on Transformation, ETH Studio Basel and Kunsthalle Basel, 2003-2004, Basel
USE-Dentro la città Europa, Seminars and Lecture series, Triennale di Milano, 2002, Milan
Solid Sea – Seminar, Kassel 2002
North, in Endgame – Blue Gold, Darb 1718 Contemporary, Cairo, Egypt 2009
North, in Maritime Chronicles, Nairs, Switzerland 2009
Territorial Agency, BINA09, Belgrade Culture Centre, Belgrade, Serbia 2009
North, in Stranded Positions, Austellungsraum, Basel 2009
The inevitable cultural negotiations when building a city in the 21st Century, Ordos 100 in Basel, E-Halle, Basel, 2009
(http://www.ordos100basel.info/)
North, Slought Foundation Philadelphia, 2008
Think Tank , in Academy - Learning from the Museum, Vanabbe Museum, Eindhoven, 2006
Switzerland– An Urban Portrait, X International Architecture Exhibition, Biennale di Venezia, 2006
Unfinishable Markermeer, in IABR International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, 2005
Neutralité, Neutraliät, Neutralità, Neutralitad, Neutrality - Fri.Art, Fribourg, 2004
Solid Sea, documenta 11, Kassel, 2002
USE, Dentro la Città Europa, Triennale di Milano, 2002
MUTATIONS, arc en rêve, Bordeaux, 1999
Polity and Space, seminar series at the Architecture Association (http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/history.htm), London, October-December 2009
Unthink: Architecture and Change in the Contemporary City, Belgrade Architecture Week BINA 2009, (http://www.nedeljaarhitekture.org/2009/eng/index.html) Belgrade June 2009
Transformations, École d'Architecture de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France June 2009
Not to know, keynote for the100th Anniversary of the Amsterdam Architecture Academy(http://www.academievanbouwkunst.nl/nl/de-academie/100-jaar/symposium-eeuwfeest), Amsterdam, May 2009
North – Escalation, keynote at transmediale 09 Berlin (http://www.transmediale.de/en/territorial-agency-escalation), Berlin, January 2009
North, at Uneven Geographies, Zones of Conflict, UCL (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/zones_of_conflict/uneven_geographies), London, January 2009
Territorial Agency, OAF Oslo Arkitektforening Oslo, November 2008
The World Without Borders, Liminal Zones Seminar (http://liminalzones.kein.org/node/19), Cyprus, Nicosia 2009
Transformations, Temple University, Philadelphia, April 2008
Neutrality, Dictionary of War (http://dictionaryofwar.org/concepts/Neutrality), Frankfurt, June 2007
My House, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (http://www.hkw.de/en/programm/2007/meinebaustelle/veranstaltungen_13367/Veranstaltungsdetail_1_14184.php), Berlin, December 2006
Observing Urban Transformations, NAi Rotterdam, January 2005
Inertia, 12th Vienna Architecture Congress, Intelligent Regions, Architekturzentrum Wien (http://www.azw.at/event.php?event_id=445), Vienna, November 2004
Neutrality, ETH Zurich, November 2004
Neutrality, Royal Academy of Arts, Copenhagen, April 2004
Solid Sea, Liquid Europe, keynote at Edinburgh University, Edinburgh 2004
Solid Sea, Field Works Reports from the Fields of Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, London, 2003
ID – A Journey through a Solid Sea, documenta 11, Kassel, Germany, September 2002
Neutrality, Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, Switzerland, October 2002
Neutralité, École Polythechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland January 2002