Fast Forward 18: Gerald Bast

University of Auckland‘s School of Architecture and Planning’s twice-annual talk series, Fast Forward, aims to foster debate, discussion and development within the disciplines of architecture, urban design and urban planning.

This series we focus on the question: how can we do urban space well? As Auckland’s population continues to grow and the city intensifies, a key challenge will be to provide high quality urban spaces.

The first lecture in the series is titled ‘Running out of Time’ by Dr. Gerland Bast, who has served as rector of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria since 2000.

His main fields of activity involve higher education policy, innovation strategies and the role of cultural knowledge in social development. In addition, Bast has initiated programmes on cross-disciplinary teaching and research, such as Social Design - Arts as Urban Innovation, TransArts, and Art and Science.

Cities were once laboratories for cultural, economic and political innovation. Today, financial transactions, trading, communication; specifically largely political decision-making processes, operate digitally and almost independently from a specific location.

In the near future, technology will dramatically change business and politics: human work will be re-defined, migration will impact culture and social life, and artificial intelligence and genome editing will question the role of mankind in the universe; all taking effect in cities where soon two thirds of the world’s population will be living.

Is education ready to meet the challenges that are being caused by rapidly increasing complexities? And what is the status of architecture in this context?

All lectures start at 6.30pm, are free and open to the public. Attendance at each lecture earns 10 NZIA CPD points.