Award Speech by Vice President Paolo La Greca:

This year the Gerd Albers Award will be attributed for the 7th time.
The Award was established in 1999 in honour of our distinguished member Gerd Albers on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Professor Albers is co-founder and past President of the Society and he has always strongly emphasized the importance of sound publications as a valuable means to further the aims of the Society.

Members of the 2007 Jury are:
Paolo La Greca, Italy (Chair)
Estefanía Chavez de Ortega, Mexico
Peter Robinson, South Africa
Ric Stephens, USA
Didier Vancutsem, Germany

As Vice President for publications I have the honour to chair the jury and the privilege to announce the results of 2007 Award selection.

Last year we had only two submissions. This time 9 papers and 2 books were submitted.
This is a reason to be satisfied, however we think ISOCARP even deserves more.
So before going on with the results I would like to take this opportunity to warmly invite you all to encourage other ISOCARP members including yourself to submit articles and/or books for the Gerd Albers Award 2008 which will be attributed on the occasion of the 44th ISOCARP Congress in China.
I would point out the utmost importance of complying strictly with the submission rules, otherwise the jury could be forced to exclude valuable contributions.

The submissions we received this year were the following:

Articles:
• Lineu Castello, Brasil, “City & Time and places: Bridging the Concept of Place to urban Conservation Planning”, in Journal City and Time, Vol.2, No. 1, 2006
• Lineu Castello, Brasil, “There’s no Reality like Hyper-Reality”, in Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Working Papers, Dec. 2006
• Renate Fritz-Haendeler, Germany, “Politikfeld Baukultur – Versuchs-Anordnungen“, in: Planung neu denken – Zur räumlichen Entwicklung beitragen, Band 1, 2006 – ISBN: 978-3-939486-01-5
• Rein Geurtsen, Netherlands, “Back to the Street/Back to the River”, in: The Memory of the City, Dutch Urbanism today, Oct. 2006 – ISBN: 908506 3426
• Mehri Mohebbi, Iran/USA, “Architectural Conservation: Improvement of the economic Situation of a Society”, in: Proceedings of the Architectural Conservation 2007, Dubai, UAE.
• Aleksandra Stupar, Serbia, “The city of technology: Redefining the role of STS approach in the global comprehension”, in: Concerning Sociotechnical Change in Southeastern Europe, 2007 – ISBN: 978-954-321-305-4
• Raquel Tardin, Brazil, “La ciudad informal”, in: Las otras Geografías, ISBN: 84-8456-663-3
Title article: La ciudad informal
• Isabel Viana, Uruguay, 13 Articles published in magazine ‘dosmil30’, 2006 and 2007.
• Thomas Wright, USA, “Newark Draft Vision Plan” – professional report resulting from a three-day charrette in Newark, New Jersey, Oct. 2006
Books:
• Luis Ainstein, Argentina: Asimetrías Urbanas, April 2007 – ISBN 978-987-584-084-3
• Danuta Klosek, Poland, Ochrona wartosci kulturowych miast a urbanistyka, 2007 – ISBN 1896-1630 –  English summary of the book entitled: Protection of the cultural values of towns versus town-planning

The papers and books submitted were assessed by the Jury according to the following criteria:
1. How does the book/paper fit into the broader context of urban theory and practice.
2. Relevance of the book/paper within the major current debates in urban planning.
3. How does the book/paper illustrate the variety of problems and solutions related to the new challenges cities or regions of different sizes and nature are facing.

I have the pleasure to announce that the winner of the 2007 edition of GAA is the article by Lineu Castello, Brazil
There’s no Reality like Hyper-reality.

Motivation:
The paper is an interesting, illustrative and provoking article about the two intertwined concepts of placemaking and placemarketing. Its high quality is testified by good observations and it reflects scholar and applied research fitting the main purpose of the Award.

The jury also unanimously decided to attribute an honourable mention to the paper by Alexandra Stupar, Serbia, for the article:
The city of technology: Redefining the role ot STS approach in the global comprehension.

Motivation:
The article is about the way Science, Technology and Society have been influencing cities through centuries. The contemporary city with its specific mixture of places, nodes and networks, layers and multiple dimensions creates a new scene, with all its alluring decoys and illusion. Therefore the 21st century city is still unable to keep its preferred direction towards sustainability but it represents an excellent experimental tissue for the next phase of technological revolution.

Paolo La Greca
ISOCARP VP for publication