On Monday 18 May 2020 Lyongo Juliana took the Pakhuis de Zwijger stage to reflect on the current coronacrisis.
From now on… We will value public space differently in terms of freedom and responsibility.
The world is turned upside down, the streets are empty. Behind this seeming tranquillity, there is a storm raging through our values and structures. This gives us the space to think about a complete ‘reset’. How can we restructure existing dysfunctional systems? In this new series, we will showcase the perspectives of a variety of thought leaders who will reflect on this present-day situation. Through the lens of their own area of expertise and with an emphasis on the Creative Industry. The corona crisis is, without a doubt, a crisis that is leaving behind a trail of victims. But which transformations will we be left within the aftermath? During these times, it is the creatives who can visualise new scenarios and through hypothesising can develop new insights into our future.
At the invitation of Lyongo Juliana, Alejandro Eccheverri talked about the role of public space in times of crisis.
Alejandro Echeverri is the co-founder and Director of URBAM, the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies at EAFIT University in Medellín (Colombia), and a Loeb Fellow from Harvard GSD. His experience combines architectural, urban, environmental projects, and planning. Alejandro believes in the ethical responsibility of designers to contribute towards a better society. Between 2004 and 2008, while working for the Municipality of Medellín, he led the Social Urbanism strategy to improve the city’s most impoverished neighbourhoods by ‘social urbanism’, making Medellín a blueprint for the future for other distressed cities worldwide.
