Imagination as a resource for the development of places

SERIES: Visual energies between bodies and museum spaces
SPEAKER: Elena Granata
DATE: Tuesday 6 September, 6 p.m.
PLACE: Sala del Refettorio

In the adult world, imagination has a bad reputation. We can use it in our free time, in side activities, but we consider it superfluous or unworthy in work and professional activities. Not to mention all those activities considered more serious than others such as politics, justice, education, even architecture, veritable machines of 'dis-imagination'. Imagination is today considered an ephemeral practice for those with free time or the exclusive luxury of those engaged in intellectual work. But imagination is an energy that we can all acquire and for it to develop it needs favourable contexts with a high cultural biodiversity. It is a fundamental resource to generate projects for the regeneration of urban spaces, for the reintegration of nature to respond to the climate crisis, for the reinvention of our living and working times: it is the genius of the placemaker, the new inventor of places, capable of finding new solutions behind problems, of transforming the existing to adapt it to the needs of people's lives.

She is Professor of Urban Planning at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano, Vice-President of the School of Civil Economy. She was a member of the Sherpa Staff, Presidency of the Council of Ministers, G7/G20 (2020-21) on the topics of biodiversity and urban transformation. She focuses on cities, environment, and social change.