As a prelude to the manifestation West Side Stories, OMI welcomes Florian Urban for a public presentation: The Oude Westen and ‘Gentle’ Urban Renewal in European Cities.
The regeneration of the Oude Westen was widely discussed and at the time mostly positively reviewed. The project served as a model for ‘gentle urban renewal’ programmes all over Europe, which were no longer based on tabula-rasa planning, top-down decision making, and forced relocation, but rather on participation and the renovation of historical buildings for the resident population. 
The presentation of Florian Urban re-assesses the Oude Westen regeneration in the context of current debates over inner-city restructuring and residential architecture in the city centre. Urban is a professor of architectural history at the Glasgow School of Art. The Oude Westen was one of several case studies from different European Cities, which he presented in his book The New Tenement – Residences in the Inner City since 1970 (Routledge, 2018). 
The visit of Florian Urban is made possible by the International Visitors Programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.