Past Events 2009

CONGRESS IV - NEWCASTLEGATESHEAD

The Academy of Urbanism held its fourth Annual Congress in NewcastleGateshead, on 13th to 15th May 2009

The Congress was opened by Cllr John Shipley OBE, the Leader of Newcastle City Council.
Bill Lancaster, Director, Centre for Northern Studies, Northumbria University, then gave a fascinating talk bringing the history of Newcastle to life.

Participants then went on a walking tour through the town, including Grainger Town, which had been a previous winner for The Great Neighbourhood Award 2008. We also walked past Grey Street, which is one of the three finalists for The Great Street Award 2010. The Congress Reception at held at the Gateshead Heritage Centre where we were welcomed by Cllr Mick Henry CBE, Leader, Gateshead Council. The sun shone on the two hour river cruise and BBQ along the river Tyne, which included the spectacular opening of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

A full programme on the 14th May started with:

Cities and the Greening of Knowledge.
Herbert Giradet, World Future Council, gave a stimulating talk on sustainable development.

The Knowledge City: Global Issues,
this session was chaired by John Worthington, Co-Founder of DEGW.
Charles Landry, Founder of Comedia spoke of thinking, acting, and planning with imagination.
John Goddard, Professor of Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University, spoke of the relationship between city and university.

The Knowledge City: Local Issues, this session was chaired by Mark Henderson, Chief Executive of the Home Group. Paul Rubenstein, Deputy Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council, described the link between economy and place, and NewcastleGateshead’s need to regenerate. The city has decided to invest in culture as a catalyst to raise aspiration. Dr. Peter Arnold, Chief Executive of Newcastle Science City mentioned the components required for creating places for people. Chris Pywell, Head of Strategic Economic Change, One North East described the deprivation of the Newcastle region through the collapse of its industrial base.

Academicians then brought participants up to date with progress on The Academy of Urbanism’s main Learning from Place programmes, whose overall idea is to improve the quality of ‘livelihood’ in our cities through collaboration, evaluation, feedback and learning.

The programmes are:
- Univercities
- City X-Rays
- KnowYourPlace

Workshop sessions finished the day, which was followed by the Urbanism awrds 2010 nominations dinner at the Discovery Museum with Ian McMillan as guest speaker. At the Congress dinner the finalist cities, towns, neighbourhoods, streets and places for the 2010 awards were announced.

On the 15th May, Pat Ritchie of the Homes and Communities Agency gave a stimulating talk and priorities for the coming year were agreed before a visit in the pouring rain to the Angel of the North.

For more detailed information of the Congress, and photos, click here

Plans are already underway for The Academy of Urbanism’s 5th annual congress in 2010 in Manchester and we hope you will join us there.

back to top