The Churches and the City

Sixty years after the Second Vatican Council Vatican, the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna is promoting an international conference entitled "The Churches and the City" to be held in Bologna on 7 and 8 March 2024.

The conference is organized with the scientific support of the DIST department. Professor Rosa Tamborrino and Professor Andrea Longhi of DIST are members of the Scientific board.

This conference is set with a double purpose.

• From a historical-critical perspective, the conference aims to analyze the relationship between the churches and the city in Europe after the second world war, in reconstruction plans, in the phases of urbanization, intercepting cultural debates on the role of buildings of worship and their design, in the renewal of the image of the city and the Church, according to the Second Vatican Council and its precursory movements, in different European contexts.
• A second session will be devoted to scrutinizing the future of the relationship between churches and cities, considering the radical changes in social structure, the acceleration of secularized society towards a post-secularized one, and the definitive distinction between civil and religious communities, and between religion and Christianity: what form, role and model for new churches (and especially parish centers) in the cities of today and tomorrow?