Rojano Mohammadi, a Master's student in the Urban Management & Development programme at IHS, is currently researching urban transitions with a focus on Rotterdam, climate governance, and the role of citizens within these processes. This past weekend, she attended the Utopian Hours international festival of city-making, which brought the first part of its 10th-edition celebration all the way from Turin to Rotterdam's Groot Handelsgebouw. The conference offered Rojano a great opportunity to gather insights from professionals and scholars alike. In this blog, she shares her highlights from the festival.
Going beyond traditional notions of prosperity
The event kicked off with an engaging opening from the moderators, who set the stage by drawing connections between Rotterdam and Turin, noting how much the two cities have in common. Throughout the session, a central theme emerged from all the speakers: cities are not merely spaces of existence, but dynamic places where things are set in motion and dreams manifest. The diverse programme brought together urban practitioners, architects, filmmakers, and scholars for a mix of presentations, tours around Rotterdam, roundtables, pop-up spaces, and an exhibition in the glass house.
Sociologist Zala Velkavrh delivered the conference's opening presentation, showcasing the work of her Bauhaus Prize-winning, entirely female-led team. Their projects circle around creating spaces for communicative action and bringing neighbourhoods together to fight the long-standing issues of loneliness and isolation. She emphasised the vital importance of speaking directly with locals to understand their needs when it comes to public spaces. This simple-looking solution developed by Velkavrh and her team have already sparked over 70 initiatives, engaging more than 1,600 people across various neighbourhoods, all designed by and for the local community. One particular note from her stayed with me: many residents requested intimate, green spaces where they could simply go to hide or cry.
For me, the absolute highlight of the conference came from Philipp Rode, a scholar from the London School of Economics (LSE). Alongside a funny comment about how every urban conference needs a "corridor of sweat" (a nod to the heated-up glass house hosting the conference), he delivered a powerful lecture moving from questions of urban value to existing gaps in approaching it. As he noted:
"In most of our conversations, we are only focused on the creation of urban value. What we don't talk about is the extraction of urban value by agents who only want to take value rather than contribute to and build it. Then there's the destruction of value - decisions that permanently erode urban value, such as car-oriented cities."
He went on to discuss the influential role of local governments in driving change - a subject highly relevant to Rotterdam, a city striving to lead in sustainability and experimentation - before concluding with a strong emphasis on the power of innovation.
Mad Architects and why caring matters
During the second day, a rather gloomy reminder hovered above us: climate change had arrived with a storm and 28-degree temperatures. Despite the weather, the day offered an interesting combination of topics, weaving together architecture for speculative futures, sci-fi and film, matri-architecture, and "mad" architecture.
Andrea D'Antrassi presented the work of Mad Architects, a studio renowned for its striking, irregular projects. Their ostentatious designs stood in stark, thought-provoking contrast to the following presentation by Richard Upton, titled “Give a Shit: Why Caring is the First Step to Building Better Cities.”
Upton opened by challenging the audience: "Are you bothered?". He argued that every professional in the room needs to be; otherwise, there is no viable path toward building socially inclusive cities that preserve heritage and foster strong communities. He concluded his presentation by urging everyone to start caring, emphasising that whilst political spheres are often slow to mobilise transformative change, every capable professional in the urban dialogue has the power to spark this process.
Ultimately, Utopian Hours brought an engaging, forward-thinking manifesto to a city that truly resonates with it, presented through an exhibition in the glass house. The festival wrapped up with a walk across the rooftops: a quintessential Rotterdam summer activity. It walk was slightly disrupted by the storm, but certainly not enough to stop people from embarking on such a unique experience.
