The show will feature the work of leading international artists and architects including Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, Nigel Coates, Nils Norman, Richard Wentworth, Fritz Haeg, Hilary Lloyd, Celine Condorelli and Can Atlay.
Global Cities has been developed from the show which was the centrepiece of the 10th International Architecture Biennale where it attracted over 130,000 visitors, making it the most popular Venice Architecture Biennale to date. The exhibition at Tate Modern will use London as a concrete point of reference and comparison with the other nine cities. The exhibition's Turbine Hall installation has been specially designed by Pentagram.
The exhibition addresses the major issues facing the great urban centres around the world: from migration to mobility, from social integration to sustainable growth. It explores five themes: speed, size, density, diversity and form and draws on comparative socio-economic and geographic data assembled by researchers at the London School of Economics.
To complement these data, the exhibition at Tate incorporates a wide range of existing visual art works in the media of video and photography that present subjective interpretations of urban conditions in each of the ten cities. The artist and architect commissions will respond to the context of London and specific issues such as sustainability and social inclusion and will be realised especially for the exhibition both in the Turbine Hall and off-site in the local area of Southwark.
With over half the world's population living in urban areas today, cities are increasingly at the centre of public debate, cultural speculation and media attention. A century ago only 10% of the planet lived in cities; by 2050 up to 75% of the world's population of 8 billion will be living in urban areas, many of them concentrated in new economies of the Global South. The shape, size and structure of exploding mega-cities like Mumbai, Shanghai, Mexico City, Istanbul or Cairo affects not only the lives of millions of new urban dwellers but also the health and sustainability of the planet given that large cities contribute to over 75% of the world's CO2 emissions. Cities are stronger today as centres of economic, social and cultural exchange than they ever have been, acting as crucibles of creativity, economic growth and social conflict.
The exhibition will act as a platform for debate, both informally and through series of public programmes. There will be a film programme and the Architecture Foundation's London Debates, which will take place the weekend 22-25 June. -- www.tate.org.uk
