Invitation to the Defense of Matilde Igual Capdevila

The Examination Panel is made up of: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Carolin Bohlmann (chair), Univ.-Prof. Mag. PhD. Elke Krasny (first supervisor), ao. Prof. Meike Schalk (external appraiser, KTH School of Architecture).

Abstract

Sociópolis (2003-2023) is an iconic “unfinished” social housing urban development in Valencia, Spain. The dissertation aims at providing a comprehensive study of its planning, its political and economic context –with a focus on neoliberal urbanisation and crisis–, the built spaces it has resulted in, and how it is used and inhabited today. 

The research aims at revealing insights on the relationship between architecture and urbanisation in a context of multiple crisis; raising critical issues relevant to our understanding of the urban spaces’ production processes and showing how those intertwine with complex economic systems, modes of political governance, architects’ ambitions, environmental concerns, housing strugles and inhabitants' everyday life and practices.

Approaching the “unfinished” from a care perspective is at the core of the thesis. Through a patchy methodology, the study contributes to finding new theoretical categories to speak about the unfinished city. By anchoring the research on the site, we witness how crises unfold concretely on the ground, in an accumulation of stories. Yet, beyond capitalocentric perspectives, Sociópolis hosts other stories: those of its inhabitants and the ways in which, through their everyday life, they are “finishing” their neighbourhood otherwise: making use of the unfinished spaces in ways that were not planned for and restoring dead soils through care and repair activities. 

Short biography

Matilde Igual Capdevila (València, 1985) is an architect and researcher. She works on transdisciplinary projects dealing with landscape, urban politics, and architecture. She holds a Diploma in Architecture from Universitat Politècnica de València and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her dissertation project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna received a DOC Fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2019. 
Matilde has held courses at the University of Liechtenstein and at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She is co-founder of the Institute for Linear Research, an open platform for territorial research by walking - in a straight line. As part of this project, she represented Liechtenstein at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018.

The defense presentation will be in English Language and will take place at the Academy of Fine Arts at Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 3, 1070 Vienna, room DG18. We are looking forward to welcoming you.