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You Tell Me Collective is hosting a series of discussion events bringing together students, young architects, professionals, experts from various fields and anyone interested to learn from one another:
Class Warfare – An Analysis of Architecture, Property and the City
In February 2023 YLE published an article about how there was a record number of empty apartments in Helsinki and yet the rental prices had not come down. The article illustrated how the real estate owners, especially large corporations, would rather keep their apartment units empty than lower the rents.
Cost of housing will not come down by simply supplying new apartments to the market. There is a coalition in cities that benefits from rising rents and apartment costs, and is actively working to prevent prices from coming down. The coalition includes the usual suspects: real estate developers, investors and construction companies, but also forces such as the municipalities and home owners. While the coalition protects the value of their assets, those who lose are renters, small businesses and first time home buyers.
What dynamics and challenges does the concept of property cause in the city? Property in the form of home ownership has long been the most common way to build intergenerational wealth. In some cases it has been the great equalizer enabling upward mobility among people from different backgrounds.
Property has also a violent history from being a tool of colonization of the Americas to redlining and other discriminative measures where access to homeownership is denied as certain groups protect the value of their property. As different interests contest over the control of the city, architecture's role as an asset comes in conflict with its other roles such as the role of housing as a human right. In France “problematic” social housing complexes are actively demolished and replaced with lower densities of private housing. As the demolition progresses the stock of affordable housing is not replenished.
What are the challenges that emerge when architecture is seen as an asset or property? What other systems of managing vital infrastructures such as housing, public space and land are there? What is the role of concepts such as commons in the city?
Welcome to discuss on Wednesday 3.5. 18:00 in the library of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
What: an open discussion event
Where: Library of the Museum of Finnish Architecture (Kasarmikatu 24, 00130 Helsinki)
When: Wednesday 3.5. 18-20:00
Why: To find like minded people and peer support as we are looking for our place in late stage capitalism
The event will be held in English but you are free to contribute to the discussion in whatever language you feel the most comfortable with.
The event follows the safer space principles of the Museum of Finnish Architecture: https://www.mfa.fi/en/visit-us/the-museum-of-finnish-architecture-principles-for-a-safer-space/
Accessibility information about the museum: https://www.mfa.fi/en/visit-us/accessibility-2/
Pre-reading:
Kahminer. T, Robles-Duran. M, Sohn. H, (2011). Urban Assymmetries. Studies and Projects on Neoliberal Urbanization. 010 Publishers. Rotterdam.
Low. S, Smith. N, (2006). The Politics of Public Space. Routledge. New York
Druot, F.; Lacaton, A.; Vassal, J.P. (2007). Plus : la vivienda colectiva : territorio de excepcion = Les grands ensembles de logements : territoire d’exception = Large-scale housing developments : an exceptional case. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili