Friday, March 7

Petit Palau, Palau de la Música, Barcelona

Registration (coffee)
Ground floor Entrance Hall

Welcome

Dialogue on Climate Change
Climate change is one of the most powerfully disruptive phenomena of our age and a spur to huge cultural change. Can the threat and reality of climate change (which is already happening on a dramatic scale in places like the Arctic) be an inspiration not to a mad, bloody and environmentally destructive rush to seize all the remaining fossil fuel resources, but to a new environmental ethic leading us to redesign the way we live so that we dwell more lightly and harmoniously on our planet?

Presenter: Harry Eyres, columnist, poet, writer and naturalist

Dialogue on Geopolitics
In the face of bitter conflict and dangerous global instability, are there any political ideas so radically disruptive that they could redesign for the better the way the great powers run the world? Can political ideas solve anything? Or are we doomed to a permanent state of violent flux?

Presenter: Richard Addis, newspaper editor, designer and writer

Morning Coffee Break
Palau de la Música Landmark Bar

Alfons Sauquet In Conversation on Business
Business is the new rock and roll, the new war, and the place where all our adventures are lived. Yet in the public mind, business remains stubbornly linked to earning and spending, power and money. Can we redesign the image of business to reflect its deeper reality as one of the most disruptive, free and creative forces of the modern world? Or is that a romantic pipe dream?

ESADE's new Dean talks to Lynda Sale, Partner of Sale Owen, marketing consultant and artist

Lunch
Palau de la Música Foyer

Dialogue on Science
After decades of success, science is running into the ultimate disruption: the unknown. Far from confirming our theories, recent discoveries have revealed huge gaps in our understanding of life, the Earth and the cosmos. It is clear that new ideas are needed to bridge these gaps, but what will they be and where will they come from? 

Presenter: Robert Matthews, academic, writer and journalist

Dialogue on Belief
Is belief — in God, gods, ideologies or ourselves — the force that ultimately drives us and designs our lives? If so, what happens when our deepest beliefs are overturned? What are the greatest disruptions to our belief systems that are on the horizon? Will they make the world more or less bearable?

Presenter: Bigna Pfenninger, Founding editor of The Drawbridge

Afternoon Coffee Break  
Palau de la Música Landmark Bar

Dialogue on Design
The buildings we live in, the cities we plan, the things we make — every now and then someone comes along and overturns everything we held sacred. What are the major disruptions on the horizon in architecture, planning and industrial design, and how will they improve our lives?

Presenter: Stephen Bayley, author, cultural critic and founder of the Design Museum