In June 2013, City Space Architecture began working on the photography research project “Pop-up City” in the city of Bologna, collaborating with photographer Fabio Mantovani.
Working in various locations, the “Pop-up City” project aimed to highlight existing places with potential for public life, exploring the invisible dimensions of the public realm, and searching for an “ordinary magic” along everyday streets, squares, and neighbourhoods, delivering new powerful images of the urban world. We explored in particular those suburban places, generally disconnected from the mental representation of the urban narrative plot of public spaces made of beauty and fascination, with no identity and continuity with the historic environment. We were moving further from the European mental attitude that immediately links the concept of “public space” to the idea of a traditionally designed square.
These suburban places are part of everyday existence, but common people are accustomed to experiencing them as fragments in a sort of jump-cut urbanism, affected by the use of cars. We pass through, but we don’t notice. The suburban world can be banal, sometimes ugly, not interesting, but full of life and can transform itself into an enchanting environment. People simply have to understand a new kind of urbanity, made of small, temporary, spontaneous and creative episodes of emotional exchange.

A pop-up city is overlapping with the existing designed city. It is unexpected, unconventional and exciting. It is inexpensive and freely accessible to everyone. It creates vibrant energies, embedding life and aspirations. It changes your perception, but only if you are ready to embrace it.
The Pop-up City project is trying to document what is now largely undocumented. We are representing the city of Bologna, but actually, the Pop-up City could be anywhere.

Curatorial Statement by Dr Luisa Bravo

Our world is made of architecture.
We move within an almost entirely uninterrupted architectural environment.
We experience places and spaces as part of an urban continuum.
Every part is anchored in a static self-consciousness, built upon familiar elements.
We have become accustomed to our mental representations of the cities we inhabit.
Our eyes often fail to perceive the transient elements that appear and disappear, reshaping the physical realm.
We pass through—but we don’t see.

Small improvements and spontaneous, creative interventions continuously add new content.
Handmade and tactical actions are kindred expressions of a genuine need—
a need to create something better, a need to exist and to act.

Living communities are reclaiming their right to the urban game.
A pop-up city emerges, overlapping the designed and existing one.
It is unexpected, unconventional, and exciting.
It is affordable and freely accessible to all.
It sparks vibrant accelerations, embodying life and aspiration.
It can transform your perception—if you are ready to embrace it.

The pop-up city bursts with emotion at a glance.
It calls for direct experience and dynamic exchange.

Running in a park on a sunny afternoon.
Crossing a square in a hurry.
Seeking inspiration in a hidden place.
In traffic, moving through flows and colors.
Working outdoors on a mid-afternoon break.
Exploring the downtown beneath the porticoes.
Enjoying a pleasant walk en plein air.
Hacking urban space, joyfully.
Sitting on the sidewalk under a full moon.
Playing in an extraordinary, improvised soccer field.

The pop-up city can be a vision of the unreal.
It can be a dream—an intelligible creation of our mind.
It can be a memory or a déjà vu.
It can be everywhere, and nowhere.
Just a snapshot—and it’s gone.

Pop-up City pictures by Fabio Mantovani.

IMPACT

PRESENTATIONS (by the curator Dr Luisa Bravo)

2014 – PORTO, Portugal. ISUF Conference
2014 – BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. Second ‘Future of Places’ Conference
2015 – ROME, Italy. MaPS. Mastering Public Space @ MAXXI B.A.S.E.
2016 – QUITO, Ecuador. Fabrica Ciudad, United Nations Habitat III Village
2018 – MELBOURNE, Australia. RMIT University, School of Art.

PUBLICATIONS (by the curator Dr Luisa Bravo)

Bravo, L. (2016) “Pop-up City. Searching for instant urbanity”, The Journal of Public Space, 1(1), pp. 155-158. doi: https://doi.org/10.5204/jps.v1i1.18. Read the article here.

INTERNATIONAL CHAPTERS

HONG KONG, November 2014. Photography session during the Umbrella Revolution, in Kowloon, Hong Kong Island, Mong Kok, Tin Sui Wai, Kwai Shing West Estate, Upper Ngau Tau Kok Estate.

BEIRUT (forthcoming).

BARCELONA (forthcoming).

EXHIBITION

2013

BOLOGNA. Quartiere San Vitale, Municipality of Bologna.
Six photographs were exhibited as part of a public symposium organised by City Space Architecture. That was a work in progress to test people’s interest and curiosity about the project.

Pictures by Silvia Costa.

2014

BOLOGNA, Museum of the History of Bologna at Palazzo Pepoli, June 27-July 20
10 photographs, as the first result of this work, were selected for a three-week public exhibition. On June 27, we celebrated the opening with academic scholars and professionals attending the “Past Present and Future of Public Space” International Conference on Art, Architecture and Urban Design in Bologna.
Thanks to Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna and Genus Bononiae for the generous hospitality and for supporting our project.

Pictures by Elettra Giulia Bastoni.

2014

BOLOGNA. Esprit Nouveau Pavilion, Fiera District, October 31
10 photographs were shown in the Diorama hall, as part of the seminar Life in Cities, on the occasion of the very first World Cities Day promoted by UN-Habitat!
Thanks to Emilia-Romagna Region, Department for Urban Regeneration

Pictures by Luisa Bravo.

2014

HONG KONG. Tin Sau Bazaar, Tin Shui Wai, November 8-15
Three photographs were selected and displayed at approximately 1:1 scale. Tin Shui Wai, formerly known as the City of Sadness, is located on the outskirts of Hong Kong. Its urban planning lacks communal spaces and micro-economic activities, resulting in a sense of disconnection and isolation. This has resulted in Tin Shui Wai being stigmatised, with problems such as social isolation and a high unemployment rate. The Magic Carpet project team at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Tin Sau Bazaar of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals envisage a comparison between Pop-up City and the situation in Tin Shui Wai. Although they are related to different geographical contexts and cultures, Bologna and Hong Kong share the same suburban reality: both cities are dealing with living communities in new, large urban landscapes far away from the historic downtown district.
By staging Pop-up City in Tin Shui Wai, the Magic Carpet project team at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Tin Sau Bazaar hope to reimagine, activate and transform the district’s public spaces, thereby making the community more vibrant. Additionally, the project aims to foster art and cultural exchange in Tin Shui Wai, where creative activities are scarce.

Pictures by Loiix Fung and Fabio Mantovani.

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