On the occasion of Milano Arch Week, a lecture by architect and urban sociologist Dieter Leyssen entitled Negotiation Infrastructure.

Infrastructure is often seen as a backdrop to urban life—a fixed foundation around which cities evolve. This lecture challenges this perception, proposing a more dynamic and transformative role for infrastructure in shaping our collective spaces. It rethinks infrastructure as a catalyst for a new type of collective imagination—one that doesn’t merely reinforce existing patterns but opens opportunities for new societal structures. Design is a device to bring the necessary stability to deal with these explorative questions while introducing first directions for what that future can be.