1st Edition

Shrinking Cities in Reunified East Germany

By Agim Kërçuku Copyright 2023
216 Pages 37 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

216 Pages 37 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

216 Pages 37 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The book explores the relationship between the shrinking process and architecture and urban design practices. Starting from a journey in former East Germany, six different scenes are explored in which plans, projects, and policies have dealt with shrinkage since the 1990s. The book is a sequence of scenes that reveals the main characteristics, dynamics, narratives, reasons and ambiguities of the... Read more

List of figures

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

Travel journals

PART I

Old problems fill new spaces

1.1 Transformation of social mass housing

Leinefelde Südstadt, Leinefelde-Worbis

1.2 Degrees of transformation

Conversation with Stefan Forster (Stefan Forster Architekten)

PART II

The luxury of appropriation practices

2.1 Temporary use of abandoned spaces

Hotel Neustadt, Halle (Saale)

2.2 Space for improvisation

Conversation with Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius (raumlabor)

PART III

Domestication and aporias of renaturization

3.1 The projects of the green space in the urban voids

Lene-Voigt-Park, Urban Walder, Bürgerbahnhof Plagwitz and Gestattungsvereinbarung, Leipzig

3.2 Perforated territories

Conversation with Engelbert Lütke Daldrup (Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH))

PART IV

The invention of quiet landscape

4.1 Transformation of productive and mining territories

Lausitzer Seenland

4.2 A landscape between mining past and tourism future

Conversation with Karsten Feucht (Studierhaus - IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land)

PART V

SHRINKING OF THE RIGHTS?

5.1 Demolition of residential stock and social infrastructure

Hoyerswerda Neustadt, Hoyerswerda

5.2 Dezentrale Konzentration

Conversation with Dorit Baumeister (Citymanagerin HY)

PART VI

Controlled migration from the West

6.1 Retirees and repopulation policies

Probewohnen, Görlitz

6.2 Qualified migration

Conversation with Robert Knippschild (Interdisziplinären Zentrums für transformativen Stadtumbau IZS) 

 

Index

Biography

Agim Kërçuku is an architect and urbanist, has a PhD in Urbanism at the Universita IUAV di Venezia. Since December 2018, he has been a research fellow at the DAStU Excellence Department of the Politecnico di Milano. Research activity focuses on the dimension of fragility in the regions marked by dynamics of shrinking and marginalisation and on the spatial implications of the phenomenon of population ageing. He edited the publication of Territory in crisis. Architecture and Urbanism Facing Changes in Europe (Jovis, 2015, with other authors), Tensioni Urbane, Ricerche sulla citta che cambia (LetteraVentidue, 2017, with other authors), Spatial Tensions in Urban Design (Springer, 2021, with other authors), and contributed to national and international publications.