2006-06-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE, WA, USA 12_01_1999
GENOVA, ITALY 07_21_2001

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SEATTLE: REGULAR GRID STRUCTURE

GENOVA: IRREGULAR MEDIEVAL STRUCTURE

SEATTLE: PUBLIC SPACE CONCENTRATED IN FEW POINTS

GENOVA: FRAGMENTED AND IRREGULAR PUBLIC SPACE

SEATTLE: WTO AREA SUPERIMPOSED WITH MANIFESTATION AREA

GENOVA: G8 AREA ISOLATED FROM MANIFESTATIONA AREA

Seattle
6 a.m., Victor Steinbrueck Park
Protesters march on the downtown.
7 a.m., Seattle Center Community College
Protesters march to the Convention Center and Paramount Theatre.
8 a.m. to 10 a.m., downtown Protesters block intersections and sidewalks leading to the Convention Center, Paramount Theatre and major hotels.Buses are used to shield the Westin Hotel and the Convention Center along Pike treet.
The opening ceremonies are postponed.
about 200 anarchists wearing black clothing and masks begin spray-painting buildings and breaking windows, first at Nordstrom, niketown, planet hollywood, and then on to a half dozen other stores.

A little after 10 a.m.
Police use gas to disperse demonstrators. Protesters respond by throwing sticks. Police move into the intersection with an
armored vehicle and use pepper spray and rubber bullets.
10:30 a.m.
Police use gas to clear out demonstrators.

students march from university of washington and from others schools
AFL-CIO members along with other demonstrators march from the seattle center to downtown

the marchers reach to downtown and join with other ongoing rallies.
35.000 protesters occupy seattle's downtown core. protesters become more defiant with each gas attack.
mayor Schell declares a civil emergency authorizing a curfew. the national guard is called in.

police clear the downtown with gas rubber bullets and concussion grenades to the edge of curfew zone
a large group of protesters retreat to capitol hill riot police follow, trying to disperse crowd with gas and rubber bullets.
after a series of standoffs the police leave and the protesters eventually go

Genova
a big area in the historical center, is closed and protected by a large numbers of police and military forces.
the area in witch is situated the "palazzo ducale", base of the G8 meeting. this area literally privatized during a week is called the
RED ZONE

almost 300.000 demonstrators march around the historical center trying to enter into the RED ZONE
the police respond with violent attack, also to the pacifist marchers, during the all day
in the afternoon one of the demonstrators is killed by a shot from a police officer.
the G8 meeting goes on...

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In both cases, in Seattle and in Genoa, Seeing the strategies of the police and of the protesters, the main problem was the lack of communication, the complete isolation between the two groups, the two ideas, and the spaces occupied from the protesters and the politicians (defended and surrounded from the police). In one case, in Seattle, the protesters made a sort of wall in order to prevent the politicians enter in the congress area, occupying the public space. In the other case, in Genoa, the police made a sort of super privatization of the whole historical center of the city, creating a big private space also occupying the public space, in order to create a secure area for the G8 meeting. The lack of communication between private and public, the strong border line thus created, is probably the space in which the architects can make an intervention, in order to transform this line, this wall, this border, from a line to a space, to expand this line into a space of communication, a space of mediation capable to trigger new relationship between the two parts, and to create new space in which discuss about politic, about the problems that affect the population of the world, to discuss all together about the PUBLIC THINGS.
…there are many other types of gatherings which are not political in the customary sense, but which bring a public together around things: scientific laboratories, technical projects, supermarkets, financial arenas —THE MARKET PLACE IS A PARLIAMENT, TOO — churches, as well as around the disputed issues of natural resources like rivers, landscapes, animals, temperature and air ,THE PARLIAMENTS OF NATURE , All these phenomena have devised a bewildering set of techniques of representation that have created the real political landscape in which we, live, breathe and argue. Hence the question that can be raised in respect of all of them is:
“they may be assemblages, but can they be turned into real assemblies?”

Bruno Latour MAKING THINGS PUBLIC 2005

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