Utopian Hours, the festival of ideas for the city of the future, opens in Turin

A city that reflects on itself, brings together administrators, planners, businesses and citizens around the same table, and seeks tools for transformation through international dialogue. This is the meaning of city making, the ‘making of the city’ that broadens the scope of urban planning and architecture to include the expertise of those who live in, manage and bring life to these places. It serves to link a vision to the conditions needed to realise it, to understand how an experience developed elsewhere might prove useful to one’s own neighbourhood, and to build relationships from which concrete initiatives emerge. An approach that, in Italia, has found a platform for dissemination and discussion in Turin through ‘Utopian Hours’, the festival organised by Stratosferica, which returns to the Centrale Nuvola Lavazza and the Dorado on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October for its 10th edition.

Launched in 2017, the project has brought to Italia insights and key figures from the field of international urban transformation, fostering dialogue between disciplines and professions that are often accustomed to working in isolation. At its heart lies the opportunity to learn from the processes through which an idea takes shape, from the people who champion it, and from the conditions that enable its realisation. ‘When Utopian Hours was first conceived, it seemed unrealistic, almost absurd, to want to build a festival around the enthusiasm that cities generate,’ explains Luca Ballarini, founder of Stratosferica and co-founder and co-director of Utopian Hours. “Today we can say that our work as creative pioneers has left its mark in Italia, so much so that there are countless events and media outlets adopting the format and language that Utopian Hours has created, tackling themes that we anticipated years ago.”

For Ballarini, the extent of this evolution is also gauged by the professional benefits arising from the dialogue. ‘Although “city making” has become a trend for many, our aim has remained to deliver successful urban solutions through an approach centred on action and impact, whilst steering clear of ideological or superficial narratives. The festival has generated over 20 million euros in economic impact, the result of professional contracts arising from relationships forged during our events and benefiting dozens of Italian cities.” This figure, provided by the organisers, therefore relates to the work facilitated through the festival’s network and reflects its ambition to also serve as a meeting point between the demand for transformation and the expertise needed to support it.

This change concerns the very way in which we interpret the city. Alongside buildings and infrastructure, the project now incorporates everyday uses, the ability of communities to organise themselves, and the management of shared spaces. Even the act of narrating a transformation becomes part of the work required to make it understandable and feasible. ‘In recent years, the way we describe urban space has changed radically. At the same time, roles have emerged within public administration that did not exist before,’ continues Ballarini. ‘Communicating how cities evolve must be translated into concrete guidance for local authorities, planners, developers and citizens themselves. We need a curatorial process capable of transforming the debate on urban development – which is often too technical or too generic and ideological – into formats and projects that distil ideas, visions and practical advice.”

It is in this transition from knowledge to implementation that new skills are also defined. One must be able to identify a meaningful experience, understand how it works, bring together different stakeholders and support the project on the ground. ‘To do this work, we need project designers who have been trained through learning by doing and who are also ambassadors for urban culture, combining communication skills with a fundamental ability to execute,’ observes Ballarini. “First and foremost, it is a comprehensive mapping exercise that Stratosferica has been carrying out for almost fifteen years, particularly through our Urban Creative City-breaks, which have enabled us to meet thousands of professionals and observe at close quarters how what we call ‘urban novelties’ have been brought to life.”