"Visitors, friends, Eutopians. Welcome to our campus, which is also our city". This is how the representative of VRIJE Universiteit Brussel (VUB) presented the program of the first day of this Eutopia Week at the Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg - the local name of the Flemish Royal Theatre - where the Eutopia Knowledge Bazaar has been set up, a kind of meeting point evoking art and science and what this combination can do for openness and inclusion. Or, as he summarized, of the urban challenges that increasingly call for different approaches.
It was also for this reason that Olaf Winkler, a painter-architect-activist, was challenged to take us on a guided tour to another Brussels, usually hidden from the touristy tours. Across the canal stands Molenbeek, one of the 19 communes that grew up around the Belgian capital - and which has since taken on a life of its own. After all, in this place that hosts a large part of the migrant community that arrives in Belgium, a series of architectural proposals are multiplying to respond to the city's problems. "It's a kind of back door to Brussels," recognizes Olaf. "But it needs a lot of people who think about the city so that it can be more sustainable."
That's exactly the challenge of this EUTOPIA Week, organized by the alliance of ten European universities of which NOVA is part of: to bring together key players from all the alliance's members - students, researchers, experts and strategic partners - to think about the future of academia.
Find out more about the program and the multiple sessions taking place online.
