| February 29, 2012 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
LECTURER: Michael Ryckewaert, KU Leuven, Belgium
Michael Ryckewaert (1972) graduated as a Master of science and engineering in Architecture (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 1995) and obtained a Masters degree in Urbanism and Spatial Planning (idem 2000). Since 1998 he is a researcher in the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning (ASRO). His research focused on housing, social exclusion, and the position of these phenomena in the urban landscape, in a number of short-term policy-oriented research projects. In 2003 he started to prepare a Ph.D. dissertation on the role of urbanism for the urbanization of Belgium since 1945. He presented his dissertation ‘Working in the functional city. Planning the economic backbone of the Belgian welfare state 1945-1973’ in December 2007. In December 2008, he won the three-yearly prize of Science and Technology of the Academic Foundation Leuven for his dissertation. Since 2007 Michael Ryckewaert is the OSA-researcher in the Steunpunt Ruimte & Wonen (2007-2011). Michael Ryckewaert is a registered architect and urban designer and teaches design studio and seminars on housing at the Department of ASRO.
The introduction of a welfare state economy after 1945 profoundly changed the Belgian territory. Government support for private home ownership resulted in widespread suburban sprawl. This book investigates the new infrastructural and business backbone that supported this suburban realm. It highlights a crucial episode of post-war urbanization and planning, and puts the Belgian case in an international perspective. It unravels a hidden logic in the seemingly chaotic nebula of construction that transformed the country since the Second World War.
Co-sponored by SDS/Parsons and The Graduate Program in International Affairs, School of Public Engagement
Date: February 29th
Location: Orientation Room M 101
