Dr Pablo Arboleda

Utility After Abandonment: the modern urban ruin as cultural asset and public space

Funding period: 1 April 2018 – 31 March 2021
Type of funding: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Pablo’s educational history spanning Architecture, Heritage, and Urban Studies has shaped an interdisciplinary approach to the study of modern urban ruins in a European context, affording him growing profile in cognate fields such as Cultural Geography, Contemporary Archaeology, and Visual Arts. His current research investigates what happens when derelict sites undergo diverse kinds of transformation into new cultural assets, and how utility during transition is actually of general significance in urban change. Through a series of situated inquiries in four different cities (Glasgow, Madrid, Berlin, Athens), Pablo studies the multivariate roles of socially engaged activists, culture‐brokers, and local institutional stakeholders in a complex urban process where architectures of abandonment acquire new social meaning and value. Within the contemporary European experience of crisis, identity and cohesion, this project examines the possibility to reoccupy modern ruins creatively and collaboratively, as public spaces to rebuild communities, alliances and solidarities.

Profile | Pablo.Arboleda@glasgow.ac.uk