The question what the city represents not only as a physical form, but also as an institution had its place in the early discussions including Plato, Aristotle or Thomas Moore in his Utopia. Naturally, they have had many followers including philosophers, historians, architects, urbanists or sociologists. We can in the simple way say that the city is mainly a cultural creation, it is the place, which is natural living space of the modern man and which has impact on his behaviour, manners and thinking. The city had always been the traditional subject of historiography, but since the second half of 20th century urban history has established itself as individual science. When Eric Lampard in 1961 defined urbanization as social process, he allowed to place it to the centre of research. The legitimacy of urban history research grew up from the assumption of existence of specific urban dimension during the historical development. From the beginning of the nineties urban history became more independent from social or economic history and it started to absorb new methodological concepts. Regarding these changes, we can talk about linguistic, cultural and space turnover, while the last one seems to be potentially unifying paradigm of urban history.
The research into urban history requires the cooperation of researchers from different fields of science including architecture, urbanism, geography, anthropology or sociology. Interdisciplinary approach is essential and the borders between different fields become more invisible. Urban history is interdisciplinary field par excellence because of fragmentation of methodological approaches. In addition, if we also include transnational approach, the fragmentation is deeper. The term urbanism also refers to processes and production of conditions leading to the creation of urban form. The subject matter of urban history includes not only realised architecture but also unrealised plans, internal disciplinary debates and argumentation.
The knowledge of theoretical approaches, including art history is essential. Our subject matter should also involve specialists focused on economic, political, social and cultural conditions, which lead to the creation of urban structures and forms. Therefore, conference organisers will welcome papers related to the following topics:

Understanding Complexity
Urbanism, politics and development strategies enable us to understand political processes, dynamics and ideologies of the whole society. Addressing the goals and methods used by urban policies, considering the disparity of political determinants and the relationship between the political sphere and the city, the objective of this panel is to contribute to the pan-European investigation of urbanism in the 20th century, determine the state of the art of 20th century European urbanism historiography by elaborating a critical overview and, gain a sense of professional responsibility in academic and/or non-academic practice.
- How can the historiography of urbanism in different European contexts be defined?
- How did state socialism and central planned economy influence urban practices in Europe?
- How did 100 years of reforming capitalism change urban patterns?

Hundred Years Expanding Tasks: Urban Issues and the Evolution of 20th Century Urbanism in Europe
The discussion about historical common base of European urbanism in the 20th century aims to ana-lyse historical and conceptual origins of urban practice in Europe. Meanings and values related to the development of cities are analysed from specialised discourses including urban, economic, social and political fields. The topic includes housing and infrastructure in early 20th century urbanism with focus on sharing of ideas, models and practices beyond frontiers. Heritage and urbanism in Europe should research the history of wide-spread processes of “heritagization” focusing on recognising the values of the existing urban spaces and landscapes in European cities.
- What are the shared ideas in Europe concerning social housing or public transportation?
- How were urban concepts, ideas and practices spread in Europe?
- How did technical infrastructure evolve in European cities?
- To which extent did urban heritage influence urban development of cities?

The Other Half of Europe
Since the fall of Austro-Hungarian Empire through dictatorships to European Union, Central Europe experienced very specific urban development during the 20th century. The phenomenon of Soviet urban planning had been present in various forms in Central Europe since the inter-war period until the fall of the communist regime. Its absolute dominance in the 2nd half of the 20th century brought about negative consequences as well, which inevitably led to the need for structural changes of cities after the fall of the communist totalitarianism. Urbanism, architecture and building of national identity will comparatively research mutual relationship of urbanism, architecture and central European national identities, taking the pan-European background in consideration as well.
- How did western perspective influence the view on Central Europe urban development?
- How were cities transformed after the fall of the communist regime?
- Which urban patterns are similar in Central Europe? What are the different countries specificities?
- How have cities dealt with their 20th century heritage? Which role have cities had in the building of identities?

Planning for Growth as Mission
Enabling and promoting growth was one of the central functions of urban planning in the 20th century. Urbanism became a policy field and a scientific discipline which supported rationalisation, Fordist production and reproduction for economic and state growth. The end of the growth model began around 1970, which forced urbanism, as a practical field as well as discipline, towards reorientation. Since then, urbanism stands between the pressure to enable sustainable (economic) development and the contradictory requirements of neoliberal urban development policy. The objective of this subject is to provide sustainable approaches and solutions to release this pressure.
- How did the growth policies influence urban planning in Europe under the main dictatorships of the first half of the century as well as in both European blocks during the Cold War?
- How did urbanism became a profession and a discipline in Europe?
- How do states deal with social welfare and growth?
- How does the new liberal planning take into account sustainable urban development?