Urban suburbs in America and in Europe

Europeans, as André Corboz likes to remind us, have always hated the American city – that very American city that has been both studied and criticised in depth. The American city will be the theme of an exhibition and a conference organised by the Fondation Braillard Architectes; to understand it with the help of Corboz’ direct experience and his analytical work, and to confront the American urban dynamics to the models of the dense, compact or poly-centric city – sometimes too simplistically associated with European cities.

Europe is also characterised by the disintegration of the suburbs, by gated and dispersed housing in rural zones, by “shoeboxes” cities’ entrances and centers of activities, by department stores and multiplexes sat on their parkings… These urban dynamics create a series of problems: consumption of the ground, dependency on cars, congestion of city centers, urban sprawl in the suburbs and degradation of the landscape.

For André Corboz, specialists of American and European cities believe that those who refuse them have not yet moved on from nineteenth-century culture. We cannot pretend for the “city” to be separated from the “countryside”, since nowadays the “countryside” is located within the “city”.

A photographic exhibition and a round table open this debate while allowing to understand the Franco-valdo-genevan situation: in 2030, the region is expected to have 200’000 more inhabitants (100’000 of which in the canton of Geneva alone) and will need to provide 100’000 jobs (70’000 in Geneva alone). One needs to consider each city’s peculiarities, while also learning from different urban structures; a detour through America to understand Geneva.