In 1957, the Treaty of Rome set down what was to become today's European Union. Today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of this European cornerstone. Yet, it seems people across European have never felt more estranged from Europe and so little European. Our project E.C.T, "European City Tour: Imagining Tomorrow's Cityscape in Europe", aims at making this European part of our national identities more tangible and real. We intend to reach that goal through exploring the common ground of our urban and architectural heritage and through involving students in the creation of what could / should be tomorrow's European city. This is a multinational project, composed of countries from northern Europe (Denmark), southern Europe (France, Italy), eastern and central Europe (Hungary, Germany). Some of these countries acted as founding fathers for the European Union (Germany, France, Italy) while others integrated it more recently, but all with a common European heritage and a shared future. Students and teachers from the five partner schools will work together in English mostly, for two years, to imagine and create tomorrow's cityscape. To do so, they will travel in major European cities such as Berlin, Bergamo, Copenhagen, Budapest and Bordeaux and understand the various mechanisms / strategies involved in living together in a city yesterday, today and tomorrow. Visits, debates, lectures about immigration, ageing population, sustainable development and architectural heritage will enable us to fathom and get ready as citizens for the current and future challenges in Europe. They will then be able to analyze future needs, create models to answer these needs through interviewing local inhabitants and authorities, organizing city tours and taking photos to bear witness of what Europe was, is and could / should be. By LIVING and EXPERIENCING EUROPE TOGETHER, students and teachers will highlight a shared heritage and seize the opportunity to define what it will mean tomorrow to be a European citizen and be able to live together. This is the very basis for youths to enrich their horizon, feel included / integrated in Europe and seize the power to act as responsible, open-minded European citizens later on.
"European City Tour: Imagining Tomorrow's Cityscape in Europe" was a multinational project, composed of countries from northern Europe (Denmark), southern Europe (France, Italy), eastern and central Europe (Hungary, Germany). Some of these countries acted as founding fathers for the European Union (Germany, France, Italy) while others integrated it more recently, but all with a common European heritage and a shared future. It was meant to make students aware of this common European heritage and shared future. Its very last Learning Activity took place a week before European Elections for the European Parliament. Have we succeeded in making our students feel more European? Are they still that estranged from each other or have they grasped the common ground of our urban architectural heritage? Has teamwork enabled them to feel closer to each other and ready to get involved in what Europe will be tomorrow? For two years, students and teachers have worked together in English, discovering the various strategies at work yesterday and today in cities' urban design. They have met and listened to architects explaining them the key notion of sustainability and living together, in community, no matter your generation or your social class, they have visited different parts of cities across Europe and made a photo exhibition out of these visits, and it led them to imagine what a train station and its neighborhood in Budapest, or anywhere, could look like in a near future. What they have in mind for the future is very similar, no matter their nationality, their origins or their social background.