Guide to Common Urban Imaginaries: The “Hands-on Famagusta” Initiative

Can collective urban practices contribute to peace processes in divided cities? How can they be used in a targeted manner as part of urban policy, to challenge dominant divisive narratives and offer alternatives to segregating urban reconstruction approaches? The book is dedicated to this role of architecture and urban planning as a political instrument for transforming ethnic conflicts into urban controversies towards the city’s commons. The town of Famagusta in Cyprus serves as an example, a town characterized by polarizing narratives and burdened by memories loaded with conflict. In order to transform the contested territories into areas of common interest and action, the “Hands-on Famagusta“ project team developed methods for urban transformation. The guide brings together practical examples of this project and international articles from relevant literature, thereby communicating strategies and tactics for the formation and spatial organization of the collective. It actively encourages deeply contested societies to invest in common urban imaginaries.