Shared Spaces with Joanna Bourke, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.

The historian Joanna Bourke was interviewed by Shared Spaces as part of the activities on the occasion of the European Prize for Urban Public Space 2012 when she was visiting the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) to give a lecture in the “Virtues” series. In the interview, Bourke made the point that public space has had a crucial role to play in recent events in European culture, mentioning as an example what has been happening in Syntagma Square in Athens in recent years. She spoke of a stage of solidarity in which public spaces have accepted their raison d’être, “at a time when public spaces are increasingly needed, necessary, and used by people to congregate”.