English Information
urbanize! 2025
»IT'S ABOUT TIME! Rhythms, Cycles and Time Regimes of the City«
Cities are characterised by the convergence of a multitude of different times and rhythms that shape everyday urban life as well as their general development. The rhythms, cycles and time regimes of work and leisure, day and night, duty and pleasure generate different urban landscapes that shape our perception and create social behaviour as well as planning necessities.
Industrialisation and urbanisation led to standardized time measurement in the 19th century, and large clocks at the railway stations soon set the pace for a mobile society. ‘The clock, not the steam engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age,’ Lewis Mumford stated in his 1934 work ‘Technics and Civilisation’. A diagnosis whose relevance we feel every day in the condensed time of the present: the city is permeated by time, space and time are closely interwoven.
Yet time is not a neutral quantity: "It orders, measures and distributes. The dispute over who controls time, its evaluation and distribution, over the structure and course of temporal processes, is the subject of political debate – chronopolitics," writes Michael Klein in dérive N° 100, the first of two anniversary editions marking 25 years of dérive – Journal for Urban Research. Part 2 will be published to accompany the festival.
Examining the city through the lens of time opens up a diverse range of perspectives on social, ecological and economic developments. The time horizons of urban and landscape planning, our approach to the existing built environment, the timescales of economic valorisation and exploitation, questions of temporal justice, feminist time politics or insights into the often long duration of urban activism are themes of this years urbanize! festival.
Explorations into the memory of the city with its historical layers, ruptures and continuities remind us, through the examination of the past, present and future, that the world is open and can be changed. Urbanistic perspectives on politics, planning and democratic participation always represent a selection of possible future scenarios. Their realisation must be decided in public and political debate.
Understanding the present as a space of possibility for a different (and better) future is the task of every vibrant, democratic urban society. Shaping it is our shared responsibility. It's about time! Join us!
Click here for the programme (mostly in german)
Overview of events and activities in English
15 OCT 2025
Planning: The Future of Space: Adaptable planning strategies for cities
16 OCT 2025
RETURN to Harry: Home is where it hurts: Exploring Vienna's iconic Wohnpark Alterlaa registration required
Practising Utopia: Multimedia workshop on imagining and visualising the future of the city registration required
(Con)temporary Urbanism: Lessons Learned and Future Developments
17 OCT 2025
Feminist Nightscapes: Night walk with Elke Krasny, Sophie Lingg and Claudia Lomoschitz
registration required
18 OCT 2025
Here We Come!: Everybody wans to go to the Westbahnpark! We are building a slide for the city and for you! With the activists of Westbahnpark
Time Matters!: Facilitating Just Urban Transformations
19 OCT 2025
Brunaupark: CH 2024 | 91 min | OmeU: Zurich is facing a severe housing crisis, with rising rents and demolitions replacing affordable homes with new luxery housing projects. The documentary Brunaupark follows residents of a 1980s housing complex over three years capturing their struggle against displacement and the transformation of a neighborhood. Tickets
ABOUT
urbanize! Int. Festival for Urban Explorations« has been organised by »dérive - Society for Critical Urban Research« in Vienna, Berlin (2018) and Hamburg (2016) since 2010. The independent association is also editor of the quarterly journal dérive, which has been published since the year 2000 as an independent platform of discussion for critical urban research and urban activism. Furthermore dérive also regularly produces the podcast »Radio dérive«, which is dealing with questions of urbanity on different scales and is licenced as creative commons.
derive.at