“MaPS: Mastering Public Space” is an Italian project promoted by City Space Architecture since 2015. It is a collaborative, international research network involving leading universities and institutions, as well as scholars and academic professors devoted to urban and architectural studies. The project aims to promote critical reflection on public space through open dialogue with professionals, city managers, designers, artists, and citizens, operating within a multidisciplinary field of action. MaPS also involves undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students, as well as non-profit organisations.
Using a horizontal, open, and intergenerational approach, MaPS promotes an international debate on public space and urbanity, aiming to share ideas and perspectives to shape new concepts and visions.

Curatorial statement by Dr Luisa Bravo

Everyone uses maps to find places and to understand and explain the morphology and geography of urban areas. They are both a tool and a resource. They depict cities, people, buildings and public spaces. The MaPS project aims to create open-minded maps that fill voids with intangible meanings and unpredictable urban experiences. These maps tell the story of contemporary public life in cities all around the world.

PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE

First outcomes of MaPS were presented in 2015:

• at the Biennial of Public Space in Rome, during the seminar ‘Public space, places and practices of everyday life‘, organised and curated by City Space Architecture. The seminar was designed as a conversation between different stakeholders, in six thematic tables, with two parallel workshops. This seminar was the third international conversation on cities and public space, part of a series launched by City Space Architecture on 31 October 2014, on the occasion of the World Cities Day promoted by UN-Habitat;
• at MAXXI B.A.S.E., the Research Centre of the National Museum of the XXIst Century Arts in Rome, during an international symposium and exhibition, on May 24, organised and curated by City Space Architecture.

IMPACT

Following the first workshop and symposium held in Rome in 2015, the MaPs project expanded to include additional partners and students, ultimately evolving into the web magazine Mastering Public Space, curated by City Space Architecture’s global community.

All photos by Elettra Giulia Bastoni

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