History

Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) Fürst-Pückler-Land

Lusatia, centre of events

Situated in eastern Germany, Lusatia is the centre of the action from 2000 to 2010 and the setting for the Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) Fürst-Pückler-Land.
The history of international building exhibitions and their precursors in Germany can be traced back over a hundred years. The milestones of this development were Darmstadt (1901–1914), Leipzig (1913), Stuttgart (1927), the Ruhr (1988–1999) and Berlin (1957 and 1980–1987).
Pride of place was given to the presentation of innovations from the fields of structural engineering, architecture and the art of living.

Innovations bring new challenges

As society develops and changes, so too do the demands of people living in it. International building exhibitions are also always connected with innovations and new architectural trends.
Housing and house building had been the central focus of building exhibitions until for the first time, in the nineties, the IBA Emscher Park was specifically dedicated to the renewal of an industrial area. The decline of rock and lignite mining and its associated industries necessitated a restructuring of the Emsch region in the Ruhr. The IBA Emscher Park succeeded in developing a new kind of cultural landscape

The traces of the lignite industry

The IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land is continuing with the same approach in Lusatia. The traces left behind by 150 years of excavating and using lignite were an enduring blot on the Lusatian landscape. Scarred landscapes and industrial monuments from bygone decades were revealed when political reunification suddenly put an end to economic developments in the former energy centre of the GDR.

IBA should bring ideas

A local initiative provided the germ of an idea to make new landscapes in the Lusatian mining region the theme of an international building exhibition, and to develop this to all intents and purposes with cross-border model projects. As 17 open-cast mines ground to a halt in Lusatia from the start of the nineties, the question for many communities was what to do with the vast residual cavities.

Early visions for the future

It became clear from this time onwards that the problem of open-cast mines required a detailed strategy over and above community boundaries, and that traditional tools were no longer up to the job. Thus, by 1994, the first ideas were emerging for a future restructuring of the region's mining landscape, such as those of architect and town planner Wolfgang Joswig. Taking some of his inspiration from the visionary landscaping ideas of Otto Rindt, "father of the Senftenberg lake region", who had only recently passed away, he developed the concept of a landscape park ("Ilse Park").

Partners onboard

During the following weeks of study, the proposal for an international building exhibition in Lower Lusatia developed from the planning of Ilse Park. By 24 May 1994, Holger Bartsch, Chief Administrative Officer of the district of Oberspreewald-Lausitz, was the first to be successfully won over to the idea of an IBA in the region. Given that the "shaping of new post-mining landscapes" transcends administrative boundaries and is a matter of concern for the entire Lusatia-Spreewald region, the three districts of Spree-Neisse, Elbe-Elster and Dahme-Spreewald and the town of Cottbus joined the group of bodies interested in an IBA.

IBA is feasible

As a result, in the autumn of 1996 it was possible to commission two working groups (ARGE Joswig & Partner and ARGE Basler & Partner) under the umbrella of the "Regional Planning Group Lusatia-Spreewald" to prepare a feasibility study for an IBA. These studies served as a foundation on which decisions relating to an international building exhibition Fürst-Pückler-Land in Lower Lusatia could be based. It was on this basis that the founding board of trustees chaired by Walter Momper started work in February 1997, and prepared a report recommending the implementation of the IBA
Fürst-Pückler-Land.

Go-ahead for planning company

At the regional meeting in autumn 1997, a resolution to prepare for the IBA was finally passed under the title of "Workshop for new landscapes" in the form of setting up a planning company. The remit of this planning company was to define a concept and guidelines for an IBA in Lusatia and to document the feasibility and financing of the preliminary IBA launch projects. The districts would not have been capable of supporting an IBA alone, so it was also important to have the state of Brandenburg "onboard" in financial terms. This succeeded when the federal government of Brandenburg passed a ruling in favour of financial support for the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land at its cabinet meeting in Cottbus in March 1999.

IBA officially at the launch

Then, in 2000, the IBA-Vorbereitungs-GmbH planning company officially switched over to the Internationale Bauausstellung Fürst-Pückler-Land GmbH.
The IBA was showcased at numerous international trade fairs right from the start. The first workshops and conferences were organised, such as those on the subjects of "Post-mining landscapes and equipment" and of marketing the F60 to tourists. The structure of the landscape islands was developed at the major international workshop in the autumn of 2001. In 2002, the year of the openings, the preliminary projects were open for public use and could be suitably showcased. Since then, the F60 visitor mine has been seen as a tourist attraction and is enjoying growing numbers of visitors.