INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The University Landscape in the Light of the Enlightenment

5–7 October 2016
University of Tartu, Estonia

The conference inquiries into the very heart of contemporary European culture – the Enlightenment-era university as a visual image and nucleus of universal change in the interpretation of space. The term “Enlightenment University” applies primarily to the universities founded in the context of the great spiritual, social and political change that occurred during or shortly before and after the French Revolution. On a wider scale, we are dealing with the university as a special phenomenon within the context of humanistic European education.

The aim of the conference is to introduce a new and potentially very interesting topic – the university landscape – to a wider European audience and to launch it as a special term in the semantics of culture. Until now “university landscape” as a subject has been only sporadically touched upon and relegated to local history and empirical study. The conference aims to research the university landscape as a whole – as an architectural, cultural, spatial and semantic phenomenon – and to provide a global context for the topic. It is also necessary to look into the future: what role will universities play in the social context or as architectural landmarks tomorrow?

The conference aims to research the university landscape as a whole – as an architectural, cultural, spatial and semantic phenomenon.

The conference will give us a chance to meet here in Tartu, in this historic and beautiful town, to share ideas and to try to capture the essence of universities.

Conference is being organized by:
University of Tartu, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Tartu, Department of Art History
University of Tartu Museum