The Esch Clinics/ Cultures of Assembly, permanent citizen assembly press conference, parliament, Luxembourg, February 2026, © Gustav Nielsen
Did we mean participate? Or did we mean something else?
On THE ESCH CLINICS as an urban prototype
Guest lecture by Markus Miessen
IZK Lecture Series
3 March 2026, 18.00
HALLE, Kronesgasse 5/I, 8010 Graz
MARKUS MIESSEN is an architect and writer, and in 2021 was appointed Professor of Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg, where he holds the Chair of the City of Esch. Miessen has previously taught at the Architectural Association (London), the Berlage Institute (Rotterdam), has been a Harvard GSD Fellow (Cambridge), and has held professorships at Städelschule (Frankfurt), HEAD (Geneva), the University of Southern California (Los Angeles), and HDK-Valand (Gothenburg). He received his PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London, supervised by Eyal Weizman. His work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, (para)institution building, and spatial politics. As a spatial consultant, he currently works with the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism. He previously worked with the EU Commission, non-governmental organisations, the Republic of Slovenia during their presidency of the EU council, as well as many cultural and art institutions globally. Amongst many other books and writings, Miessen is the author of the critically acclaimed “The Nightmare of Participation” – which was translated into Chinese, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and German – and “Crossbenching” (both Sternberg Press). Amongst others, he has edited volumes such as “Para-Platforms: on the spatial politics of right-wing populism”, “Agonistic Assemblies, on the spatial politics of horizontality”, “Reflections on Democracy and Urban Form” (with Richard Sennett and Diane E. Davis, forthcoming 2026), and – with Nikolaus Hirsch – is the co-editor of the book series “Critical Spatial Practice”. Since 2024, he is also a Dean’s Visiting Professor at Columbia GSAPP, NY, and together with Diane E. Davis started an institutional collaboration between PUBLICS (Harvard Graduate School of Design) and CULTURES OF ASSEMBLY (University of Luxembourg).