Gleisland – Straßenland

A Design Research Project of the Research Center “Real-Time City” of TH Köln

The research center “Real-Time City” of TH Köln opened its two temporary city labs in Cologne for the PASSAGEN 2020. From 13 to 19 January 2020, media- and time-based works as well as spatial installations were shown there, which paradigmatically dealt with questions about the ‘right to the city,’ about the handling of inner-city infrastructural wastelands and about the ownership of urban space. The temporary laboratories were located at two contested, symbolically charged sites in Cologne: the former freight depot in Ehrenfeld and Ebertplatz in Neustadt-Nord.

Gleisland

In the “Gleisland” project, design students transformed a former railway building at the western tip of the former freight depot in Cologne Ehrenfeld into an experimental laboratory for participatory urban visions. The project exhibition showed the eventful history of this place, which is characterized by physical mobilization, transport flows and material flows. Experimental works reflected the conversion from former freight depot to new residential quarter and explored the possibilities of changing urban mobility cultures.

Straßenland

In the “Straßenland” project, design students transformed the art space “Gemeinde Köln” on Ebertplatz into a future archive of the (post-)automotive city. The archive was based on the scenario of car-free city centers, according to which automobile spaces are freed up for alternative public uses. The exhibited works showed the potential of such mobility spaces using the example of the Nord-Süd-Fahrt in Cologne.

Organisation: Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler (TH Köln); Mario Frank, designer & cultural activist; Julian Hoffmann, design research assistant (TH Köln)

Project Partners: Johannes Geyer & David Morsi (City of Cologne, City Planning Department), Agustina Andreoletti (art space “Gemeinde Köln”, Ebertplatzpassage), Amon Nanz (Kooperative Westspitze e.V., Cologne), and Martin Schmittseifer (Jack in the Box e.V., Cologne)

Participants: Tyanka Demyanka Adrian, Tamara Bertran, Anna-Lena Derksen, Julian Habermann, Konstantin Hehl, Luisa Hoffmeister, Yvonne Lober, Lara Maiwald, Hanno Parschauer, Justus Poggenburg, Amelia Sánchez Pastuszyk, David Sieverding, Martin Sistig, David Wiesner, Christian Wild von Hohenborn

Duration: October 15, 2019 – February 6, 2020