Mestoláska

mestolaska-web.jpg

„Mestoláska“ (Citylove) is a series of public lectures prepared by Spolka in collaboration with cinema Kino Úsmev in Košice city. The talks thematize urban life and city planning through the topics of democracy, equality, transparency and conflict in a city.

The audience of the public lectures are primarily people, who are interested in the city, whether as professionals (architects, urbanists, developers, administration, politicians, students, economists, sociologists, activists, …) or simply as city-lovers. „Mestoláska“ aims to communicate important topics in a lightweight format, accessible to everyone.

2022

City X Bees X Insects

15. 11. 2022, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

Do bees and pollinators belong in our cities? A town talk on the topic of the city, biodiversity of greenery and the importance of pollinating insects with (not only) beekeepers Dávid Turčani and Monika Suchánská.

City X Trees

31. 10. 2022, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

How should we go about planning and creating visualisations if we want to give trees an important voice in the future of our cities? And why and how do trees and greenery actually relate to climate change adaptation measures in cities? We invite you to a lecture and discussion on the topic of cities and trees with architects Kateřina Vídenová and Kristina Roman. Visit Facebook event

City X Art

15. 9. 2022, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

Mestoláska with curator Martina Johnová and graphic designer Igor Kupec. Together they looked at the interrelationships between space, architecture, art and people. What form can art take in contemporary public space and what themes can it reflect? Visit Facebook event

City X Mobility

30. 5. 2022, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

The crisis events of the last two years have highlighted the importance of changing the approach to urban mobility. Mestoláska with researcher and sociologist Michal Šindelář and activist Adrián Chreň focused in particular on the development of cycling in the city. Visit Facebook event

2021

Never Never School: Caring cities

16. 9. 2021, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

One way of approaching the shared ideals of caring places is to create and write caring stories about their possible futures. Mestolaska with curator Irena Lehkozivova and philosopher Adriana Jesenkova concluded the thematic year of caring with a discussion of concrete examples of how we imagine caring cities and their creation in practice. Visit Facebook event

Read the essay from Mestoláska, which we published as a design poster. The author of the essay is Gréta Čandová. The essay is in Slovak language.

City X Home

16. 8. 2021, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

The theme of the Mestoláska with social anthropologist Barbora Bírová was the creation of everyday policies at the municipal level aimed at ending homelessness. We shared concrete experiences, tools and inspirations that show that even in complicated environments it is possible to make positive changes to make cities home for everyone. Visit Facebook event

Read the essay from Mestoláska, which we published as a design poster. The author of the essay is Juliana Sokolová. The essay is in Slovak language.

City X Wilderness

13. 6. 2021, 7pm, online stream + live from Úsmev cinema

How to get to know the valuable landscape of brownfields - semi-empty spaces after mostly industrial production in the middle of cities? And how to use the knowledge to convert these places to new neighbourhoods? How to incorporate the old-new “wilderness” into the new development? Lecture with discussion “Citylove: City X Wilderness” will take a closer look at applied nature protection and landscape ecology (not only) for architects, designers and urban planners, with examples from, for example, Berlin Park am Glesidreieck or Holešovice Park by the water.

Guest: Jan Albert Šturma (geobotanist)
Local debateur: Eva Sitášová (botanist)
Moderator: Lýdia Grešáková (Spolka)

This event is a followup on ▷ Masterclass ◁ with Jan Albert Šturma on the topic of invasive urban vegetation.

Facebook event

2020

Caring X vulnarable city

16.12.2020, 7pm, online stream + live from Úsmev cinema

Guest: Miriam Kanioková (sociologist)
Local debateur: Richard Dlhý (economist, Košice municipality)
Moderator: Zuzana Révészová (Spolka)

What role can cities play in taking care of their inhabitants? How are municipal authorities vulnerable in matters of care? Despite Advent, the discussion will not focus on charitable help options, but on the contrary on the structural aspects of social assistance to cities in Slovakia. The development of social services will be of particular interest.

Facebook event

Ideal X compromise

18.11.2020, 7pm, online stream

For some, ugly buildings symbolizing socialism, for others, monuments worthy of protection. Modern architecture typical of the period 60s-80s often carries with it the symbolism of the political regime in which it originated in our contexts. Material solutions often do not meet the requirements of current environmental standards and changes in the use of buildings allow them to decay, for example, the famous Družba cinema. The “Citylove: Ideal vs Compromise“ was about the dilemmas associated with protecting modern architecture.

Guests: Monika Kicová, Peter Beňo (Initiative for Modern Architecture)
Local debateur: Igor Machata (architect, researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts in the project of the Radical Protection method)
Moderator: Spolka

Facebook event

City X Planet

20.09.2020, 6pm, cinema Úsmev

Guest: sociologist Vojtěch Pecka
Debateurs: Zuzana Jarošová (Carpathian Development Institute), Alex Blandón (Fridays for Future Košice)
Moderator: Lýdia Grešáková (Spolka)

This event is part of an accompanying program to the exhibition: Košice ±40°C: Who, what and how will the extremes of climate affect the most?

City X protection X recovery

22.06.2019, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

History breathes on us from every corner of the city.
Buildings, parks, paving. They are all part of our memory. But sometimes the history is hidden, forgotten and neglected - fallen plaster, the remains of an old facade, a statue hidden in overgrown bushes.

Recently, emotions about protecting the historical public park in front of cinema Úsmev, which has been using it, have been stirring up. Spolka's task is to create a common ground for constructive dialogue. Be part of it.

How can we find the right balance between revitalizing these spaces and protecting them?
When is the protection an obstacle and when an opportunity to develop a public space?
How can we encourage meaningful dialogue between public institutions and the citizens of the city?
How can we protect and revitalize our city together?

Guest:
Lívia Gažová

Facebook event

NEVER-NEVER SCHOOL: City X river

23.2.2020, 5pm, Valyo, város és a folyó (Budapest, Hungary)

Large developments vs UTOPIA in Kosice along Hornád river

In February, we brought you a discussion with a short film screening about the Never-never school, the river, the city and the relationship between them. How to create a better place for life and development in our city with respect? The discussion was open for all people interested in the city, whether simply as city-lovers or as professional architects, urbanists, developers, administration, politicians, students, economists, sociologists, activists, … 🌊

Guests:
Never-never school, transdisciplinary international summer school on the topics of utopia, post-socialist contex and in-betweenness.
Filmmaker Poppy Illsley, whose work applies a fine art training, and narrative filmmaking techniques to create documentary and educational material, primarily covering scientific topics.
Gergely Kukucska, an architect and member of Valyo association, who loves to work with small scale interventions, activism and social connected topics.
..and Spolka+

The discussion and short film screening were followed by a book launch.

Facebook event

Thanks to our partners: Visegrad Fund, Fond na podporu umenia, Spolka, Kino Úsmev, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, Zahradnícká fakulta Mendelovy univerzity v Brně, Valyo - Város és Folyó Egyesület, Technická Univerzita v Košiciach, TU Berlin and Fachgebiet Städtebau und Siedlungswesen, Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplannung TU Berlin

2019

City X history

15.12.2019, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

mestolaska-11-web.jpg

During the 20th century, urban planning was established as an important tool for spatial management of social development in Europe, but also on other continents. Urban planning has contributed to the emergence of a welfare state, strong economies and a balanced settlement structure. However, urban planning has also caused the suppression and destruction of some population groups, in addition to the destruction of natural and cultural resources. With the collapse of socialism in 1990 and the increasing importance of the EU, the 20th century ended with a multi-level approach to urban plans as regulatory and shaping tools.

During the Mestoláska in December, under the topic of history, we zoom in on UrbanHist - an interdisciplinary research and training program that seeks to develop a common understanding of the history of urban planning in the 20th century from a European perspective and overcome its national understanding. What topics does it bring for in relation to the city?

Guest:
Professor Martin Pekár, historian, head of the Department of History at the FF UPJŠ and vice-rector of the University. He is the founder of the magazine Mesto a dejiny (City and history) and a member of major scientific societies in Slovakia and abroad. He is also a member of the board of directors of the National Memory Institute. He leads the UrbanHist project, which was selected to support the Horizon 2020 scheme together with an international team of experts.

Facebook event

City X housing estates X fantasy

28.10.2019, 6 pm, cinema Úsmev

The topic of this lecture, focused on Czechoslovakia, is gloomy and hateful depictions of socialist collective housing in the so-called paper architecture around 1990. On drawings, magazine covers, and other paper documents, the housing estate is subjected to various forms of symbolic violence: blown up, turned into a wasteland, buried underground, exposed to inhuman monsters. Contrary to the argument that paper architecture represented a medium of emancipation against state socialism, this lecture argues that it was also a channel of upcoming neoliberal rationality — in architecture, housing policy and society as such.

Guest:
Maroš Krivý

Local debateur:
Ivana Komanická

Facebook event

NEVER-NEVER SCHOOL: Realities X utopias

01.09.2019, 6 pm, cinema Úsmev

Still today, 30 years after the fall of the communist regime, we are living in a city that was imaged to materialize the socialist dream. As presented during the event, this never-finished utopia forms our daily life, and the present visions influenced by our new dreams – those of western neoliberal democratic society. What city do we imagine today and how do we shape it through telling stories, pictures, writing or publishing?

September’s “Citylove” brought into the discussion Romanian KAJET Journal and our local Ta Take Town from Prešov.

Facebook event

Thanks to our partners: Visegrad Fund, Fond na podporu umenia, Spolka, Kino Úsmev, Tabačka Kulturfabrik, Zahradnícká fakulta Mendelovy univerzity v Brně, Valyo - Város és Folyó Egyesület, Technická Univerzita v Košiciach, TU Berlin and Fachgebiet Städtebau und Siedlungswesen, Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplannung TU Berlin

City and war

28.01.2019, 7 pm, cinema Úsmev

mestolaska7-web.jpg

Guest: Lynda Zein, an architect interested in collective memory and gentrification. She studied at the University of Edinburgh and the École Spéciale d’Architecture with the project “Homs: city of stories”. She teaches urbanism at the Archip school in Prague.

Facebook event

2018

City and monument

03.11.2018, 6 pm, cinema Úsmev

mestolaska6-web.jpg

This month's discussion focuses on memorials, monuments in the public space, their meaning, maintenance and political communication.

Guest: Anežka Bartlová, art critic and theorist, book editor of Manuál monumentu (2016).
Local debateur: Dorota Kenderová, director of the East Slovak Gallery in Košice.

Facebook event

City and control

07.10.2018, 6pm, cinema Úsmev

Mestoláska in October will have a closer look at different aspects of military urbanism. We will encounter topics such as control of public space, urban violence or the history of city as weapon.

Cities and towns all over the world are influenced considerably by military and security policy – they are the battleground of today’s urban world. Military infrastructure shaped and is still shaping our cities. Be it the militarization and surveillance of borders, the use of ‘security’ concerns to legitimize constant tracking, scanning and controlling of urban inhabitants with high-tech methods, the all-influencing discourse on ‘terrorism’ or heavily armored private security forces guarding gated communities – Military Urbanism permeates into the urban fabric and influences urban life around the world.

Guest: Andreas Brück, a researcher at Technical University of Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin) and visiting professor at FU Dessau.

Facebook event

Utopia and urbanism

05.08.2018, 6pm, KLUB

Reading session connected to the project of Never-never school.

Facebook event

Inclusive city X Segregated city

11.06.2018, 7 pm, cinema Úsmev

mestolaska4-web.jpg

Guest: Martin Freund, poslanec Žít Brno (Brno, CZ)
Local debateur: Martin Jerguš, Útvar hlavného architekta mesta Košice
Moderator: Zuzana Reveszová, Spolka.cc

Facebook event

Feminist city X Sexist city

13.05.2018, 7 pm, cinema Úsmev

Guest: Milota Sidorová, urbanist
Local debateur: Juliana Sokolová, poet and philosopher
Moderator: Lýdia Grešáková, Spolka.cc

Facebook event

Industrial city X Creative city

09.04.2018, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

Guest: Ljubo Georgiev, architect, director of Sofproect (Sofia, BG)
Local debateur: Michal Hladký, Creative Industry Košice
Moderator: Zuzana Tabačková, Spolka.cc

Facebook event

Democratic city X Totalitarian city

12.03.2018, 7pm, cinema Úsmev

Guest: Dominika Belanská, architect
Local debateur: Zuzana Tabačková, Spolka.cc
Moderator: Zuzana Révészová, Spolka.cc

Facebook event

Team and support

The series of lectures Mestoláska is prepared in cooperation with the Cinema Úsmev by Spolka:
Sociologists Mgr. Lýdia Grešáková and Mgr. et Mgr. Zuzana Révészová, PhD. and architects MgA. Viktória Mravčáková and Zuzana Tabačková, MA.

The project is supported by the Slovak Arts Council: a self-governing public institution guaranteeing support of art activities, culture and creative industry.