Celebrate our 20th anniversary with us with an engaging and thought-provoking discussion with a philosopher, an architect and urban designers, imagining the cities we want to live in.
Dive into a journey where the future of cities and big ideas come together for one of our events during Metropolis, our 20th anniversary programing this Fall. This mix of new ideas and deep thinking will include four Swiss projects, showing off new technologies and initiatives aimed at shaping the cities of tomorrow.
Join the conversations between urban designers and a political philosopher, as well as an architect, who will break down the main ideas of each project to imagine both utopian and dystopian futures, highlighting the tough choices we might face. Explore different ideas of perfect cities, think about different tech and values, and picture the cities we want to see in the future, mixing what we have now with what might come next.
More than just a showcase, the evening fosters a dialogue contrasting present-day societal values with those of a forward-thinking tech city. Detailed narratives of each project will unfold different city visions, emphasizing challenges in shifting values.
Prior to this event we are opening the Pier for an Open House at 4:15pm with a guided tour of our exhibition. Register here to attend the guided tour of the exhibition.
Bio
Cathy Simon’s 50-year career focuses on transformative design. Her award-winning work comprises higher and secondary education including buildings and institutional master plans. She has reinvented numerous historic structures and designed significant waterfront projects and numerous postindustrial Bay Area waterfront sites.
In 2015, she was the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy of Rome and taught at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Cathy is the author of Occupation:Boundary Art, Architecture and Culture at the Water, published in 2022 by ORO Editions.
She is a member of the University of Washington Architectural Commission and the UC Berkeley Design Review Committee. In 2023 she was awarded the Alumni Award by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Bio
Jeanne Proust has studied Humanities, Philosophy and Visual Arts in Bordeaux, Berlin, and Paris. She has been teaching Philosophy for the last 13 years in the US and is currently the interim director of the Center for Public Philosophy (UC Santa Cruz).
Her PhD dissertation (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) focused on the pathologies of the willpower, both in philosophical and psychological perspectives, but her interests are wide: among many fields, she does research in Ethics, Philosophy of Technologies, Bioethics, Feminist theory, and Aesthetics.
She taught at different universities in New York, advocating for a widening of philosophical education beyond the Academia frontiers by participating in different events open to the general public. She gives many public talks, volunteers in prison (Rikers Island, San Quentin), collaborates on podcast projects (including her own, canyouphilit?), and regularly organizes public events in Philosophy.
She is working on launching the first Tech Ethics Bowl in the Bay area, and the first Santa Cruz edition of the Night of Ideas.
Bio
Emilia is the CEO of Swissnex in San Francisco. During four years, she was the Policy Advisor to Swiss President (2018, 2023) and Minister of Home Affairs Alain Berset. She worked on foreign affairs, economic policies and culture and was responsible for international affairs.
Prior to this position, she was the the managing director of “foraus – the Swiss Think Tank for foreign policy” during four years, after acting as Deputy Secretary General at the International Chamber of Commerce Switzerland and Focal Point for the UN Global Compact Switzerland. Between 2011 and 2013, she worked as a research assistant and author at Année Politique Suisse – the Swiss yearbook on Swiss policies, where she specialized on Swiss foreign policy and social groups.
Emilia holds a Master in Political and Economic Philosophy from the University of Bern and was visiting student at the University College Dublin and New York University.
San Francisco, November 6–9, 2023 /
With 'Metropolis – Sustainable Futures Under Construction', Swissnex in San Francisco is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a look into the future of cities, focusing on food, energy, and the built and digital environment.
