Abstract
How does migration change the cities? How does it manifest in architecture, housing, services and public space ordering? What happens with the urban space when newly arriving inhabitants from all around the world start to make use of it? The exhibition "Arrival city: Southwest city" explores the changes in the Prague neighbourhoods of Lužiny, Nové Butovice and Hůrka (Prague 13 district) caused by the arrival of migrants predominantly from Eastern Europe. The exhibition is based on the results of anthropological research in the area and presents the (in)visible diversity in the space in between the the Prague housing estates, which have recently hosted thousands of different arrivals.
The Prague exhibition is a continuation of a German project called "Making Heimat: Germany Arrival Country", presented originally at the 15th Venice Architecture Bienale. The German project reacted to the fact that almost million people arrived to Germany in 2015 from the Middle East, which caused divisive reaction across the society.
The so called "refugee crisis" became the central focus for experts based in the German Museum of Architecture - and they created the first version of "Arrival City" exhibition, mapping the architectural response to the new arrivals to German towns and cities. The authors of the exhibition then decided to spread the concept of "arrival city" and asked 9 different offices of Goethe-Institut in 9 different countries all around the world to cooperate.
These exhibitions, created in places like San Francisco, Mumbai or Caracas, aim at exploring the different versions and forms of arrival cities in different contexts. The exhibition "Arrival City: Southwest City" is the local, Prague-based response to these questions.
It presents the Prague version of an arrival city, located in the suburban housing estates.