In favour of public space

After being shown in Ljubljana and before moving on to Luxemburg, the itinerant exhibition that presents the results of the 2012 European Prize for Urban Public Space is now being shown in Caen, in the north of France. The exhibition venue is the Pavillon de Normandie, a former industrial building in the Bassin Saint-Pierre marina which the Caen City Council has acquired as a space for reflection and debate about the city. Indeed, the capital of the Basse-Normandie region is undergoing an ambitious programme of urban transformation which, now renovating the old factory zone of La presqu'ile, is already underway. This peninsula, stretching into the Atlantic and now barren after deindistrialisation, is to house new cultural facilities as well as third-sector and residential buildings. The Pavilion, occupying the end of La presqu'ile next to the city centre, has recently opened its doors with a view to its becoming an observatory of the city’s urban transformation, a place where the citizens can be informed about it and debate its effects on the social and economic future of Caen. The opening of the Prize exhibition in this new, ambitious centre took place on 28 February, organised by the La Maison de l'Architecture de Basse-Normandie as the starting event in a festival which, throughout the month of March, will offer routes, lectures, workshops and film screenings.