City Outside the City

Cities are gaining in popularity. But is neither possible nor desirable for everyone to live in the densely built-up and often expensive inner city. Many people opt for the suburbs: close to the city, but not too close. Terraced houses and flats near schools and shops are often still affordable in the suburbs.
Urban renewal has for a long time concentrated chiefly on the city centre and the 19th-century quarters of our cities. On the basis of a number of studies and designs, this exhibition shows the exceptional potential latent in the suburbs – the City Outside the City. A variety of projects outline the ways the spatial diversity of green areas and residential districts can be developed. But this exhibition is more than just a presentation: it seeks out the outskirts of the city, old country estates, garden districts, shopping centres and dense industrial estates that characterise the City Outside the City not only in Europe but elsewhere too. And it tries to find a new identity for the suburbs: both relaxed and urban.

Curator Flemish Architecture Institute produced by Flemish Architecture Institute, deSingel international arts campus