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Rethinking theory, space and production: Henri Lefebvre todayInternational conferenceConcept:The questions about the relationships between research and design, critique and performance, analytical methods and planning techniques belong to the most pressing in the ongoing urbanistic debate.The international conference will address these questions by focusing on the theory of production of space by Henri Lefebvre and its mobilizations and development in contemporary urban research, architecture and urbanism.Program:Rediscovered in the 1990&#8217;s, Lefebvre&#8217;s theory opened up new ways of understanding of today&#8217;s processes of urbanization and their conditions and consequences at any scale of the social reality: from the practices of everyday life, through the urban scale, to the global flows of people, capital, information and ideas. At the same time, this theory has the potential to relate urban research and design practices because of its programmatic questioning of the links between the urban analysis, the critique of urbanism, and the vision of a new type of social space in the contemporary city.The starting point of the conference will be the research recently carried out both at the ETH and the TU Delft, which combined a theoretical reading of the theory of Lefebvre with its employment in an analysis of the contemporary processes of urbanization.Broadening this focus and relating to the work of theorists, architects, designers and urbanists, this conference will examine the exchanges between research methodologies, theoretical frameworks, mapping techniques, and design procedures inspired by the theory of production of space and going beyond it.Process:This project will be carried out by two symposia consisting of lectures, workshops, and debates. The first symposium will take place in Delft (November 11th&#8211;13th, 2008), the second in Zurich (Autumn 2009).Each symposium will confront key contributions to urban research which mobilized Lefebvre&#8217;s theory with its most recent instrumentalizations in empirical studies and design projects. While the lectures will gather &#8211; for the first time &#8211; the most significant applications of Lefebvre&#8217;s theory carried out during the last twenty years in various disciplinary environments and political contexts, the workshops will present contemporary instrumentalizations of this theory in experimental urban research and emerging design practices. The confrontation of these two perspectives during the debates will allow developing critical approaches towards Lefebvre&#8217;s ideas and test their relevance for today&#8217;s discourse and practice.The Delft symposium: call for contributionsThe organizers of the Delft symposium invite proposals of papers presenting empirical urban research and architectural and urbanistic projects which take the theory of production of space by Henri Lefebvre as their starting point. The organizers explicitly encourage contributions which draw theoretical conclusions from concrete engagements with the contemporary city and allow for a critical rethinking of Lefebvre&#8217;s theory and its development.Each presentation should take 30 minutes and be presented in English.Please send an abstract of up to 300 words, institutional affiliation, and a short curriculum vitae to Lukasz Stanek, ls@henrilefebvre.orgAbstracts can be submitted until 15 June 2008. The selected participants will be informed by 15 July. The travel and accommodation costs of successful applicants can be covered by the organizers. After the Delft workshop, selected participants will be encouraged to develop their projects with the possibility of presenting them at the Zurich symposium, and to contribute to a future publication.For more details and updates, please visit the web-page of the conference at: www.henrilefebvre.org