[oberlist] HU* cfp: Cities of a new type (Dunaujvaros, 21-22 May, 2015)

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Subject: Artinfo Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15
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Date:    Tue, October 21, 2014 12:00 pm
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 11:18:42 +0200
From: Andreas Broeckmann <broeckmann at leuphana.de> (by way of Janos
	Sugar)
Subject: [artinfo] CFP: Cities of a new type (Dunaujvaros, 21-22 May
	15)

From: Jerome Bazin <jerome.bazin at u-pec.fr>
Date: Oct 20, 2014

Duna?jv?ros, Hungary, May 21 - 22, 2015

Deadline: Dec 1, 2014

Cities of a new type. New industrial cities in popular democracies after 1945
International conference in Duna?jv?ros

In the socialist countries after 1945, several
cities were erected from scratch next to an
industrial complex: the main ones were
Duna?jv?ros (named Szt?linv?ros from 1951 to
1961) in Hungary, Eisenh?ttenstadt (Stalinstadt
from 1953 to 1961) in East Germany, Nowa Huta in
Poland and Dimitrovgrad in Bulgaria. They were
supposed to become cities of a new type,
different from the chaotic, segregated and
capitalist city. They had to invent a socialist
way of life and the population of these cities
(mostly workers) did create a specific working
class culture, even if it was different from the
one that was expected by the authorities. Each
city was progressively built through ideological
ambitions, but also through concrete constraints
and unexpected evolutions. The history of each
city has so far been studied and written mostly
from a national or regional perspective. We want
to consider them from an international point of
view and to put them in a comparative and
transnational perspective.

We will consider the entire socialist period,
from the late 1940s to the late 1980s. That is to
say not only the time of the construction (the
early fifties) but also the following decades,
when the young cities got older and were
transformed, according to local factors and
according to the transformation of each popular
democracy. However, we will not consider the
post-socialist period.

The conference will focus on the four
above-mentioned cities, but it will also consider
smaller new cities (?zd and Koml? in Hungary,
Nov? Dubnica in Czechoslovakia, Nowe Tychy and
Jastrz?bie in Poland, Schwedt and Hoyerswerda in
East Germany, etc.) and new districts in already
existing cities (for instance, Poruba next to
Ostrava in Czechoslovakia or Halle-Neustadt next
to Halle in East Germany).

We particularly welcome papers investigating topics such as:
- The comparison between the cities. The
conference will examine both the history of the
towns (plan, architecture, construction
techniques, etc.) and the history of the people
who came to the towns (migrations, work in the
factory, everyday life, housing, etc.). For each
topic, comparisons shed light on unnoticed facts.
For instance, putting next to each other the
plans of the new cities shows significant
differences and leads to think about the urban
morphology or about the relationships between the
city and the factory. Similarly, comparisons
between the pieces of furniture in the new
apartments lead to think about design in
socialist regime.

- The understanding of exchanges between the
cities. Archives give evidence of economic and
cultural collaboration, mainly through
delegations exchanges. And these exchanges
concerned the different involved actors:
decision-makers of local authorities, party
members, city planners, engineers, workers. What
did people from Nowa Huta know from Duna?jv?ros
and Eisenh?ttenstadt? In what extent did these
cities constitute a network? In this sense, the
conference participates in the current
historiographical reflection on the economic and
cultural collaboration between socialist
countries and on the integration of socialist
space.

- The question of the models. What was presented
and considered as model? In the official
discourse, there was only one model: the USSR and
its main new city from the 1930s, Magnitogorsk.
But the actual influence of the Soviet Union is
hard to understand. What was known exactly from
the Soviet Union? What was imitated? Magnitogorsk
seems to have been very far and actually little
known; other building sites, like the
reconstruction of Stalingrad, were maybe more
familiar. And the USSR founded many new cities,
all over its huge territory and during the entire
socialist time. What was done with this
knowledge? The contribution of specialists in
Soviet history would be very appreciated.
Despite the official discourses, Soviet Union was
certainly not the only model. The new cities in
Eastern Europe also looked at what was done in
Western Europe and also outside Europe. These
cities were built through different derivatives
and borrowings that were put together.

The conference will be held in Duna?jv?ros and
Hungarian researchers will then present hitherto
unseen archives from the steel factory Dunaferr:
paintings, photographs and various sources about
the functioning of the factory or about the daily
life of workers (for instance Dunaferr possesses
a precious collection of brig?dnapl? - the diary
that each brigade had to write about work and
life in the factory). Such archives, which
present interesting resemblances with archives
from similar cities, will contribute to the
historical, nuanced and objective understanding
of the socialist way of life.

Please send an abstract of up to 500 words and a
brief academic CV to
pepperart.dunaujvaros at gmail.com. Deadline for
submission of proposals is 1st December 2014.
Conference language is English. Funding is
available to cover travel and accommodation
expenses.

Organisation committee:
J?r?me Bazin, Paris-Est Cr?teil University.
Mih?ly Moln?r, Pepper Art Projects (Budapest).
D?ra Moln?r Pepper Art Projects (Budapest).
G?bor Rieder, independent art historian (Budapest).

Scientific board: Ulf Brunnbauer (Regensburg
University), S?ndor Horv?th (Hungarian Academy of
Sciences), Dagmara Jaje?niak-Quast
(Frankfurt/Oder University), Katherine Lebow
(Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust
Research), Andreas Ludwig (Potsdam Center of
Contemporary History), Gy?rgy Sz?cs (Hungarian
National Gallery).

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Cities of a new type (Duna?jv?ros, 21-22 May
15). In: H-ArtHist, Oct 20, 2014.
<http://arthist.net/archive/8693>.



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