Urban Renewal as a Civil Project

2010: IBA Urban Renewal

Demographic Change

Germany finds itself at the end of European birth statistics. Another shrinkage factor refers to the economic structural change which especially hit Eastern Germany in fast motion right after the political system change. Thousands of company closings and a sudden rise of unemployment led to the movement of mostly young and qualified people to economically stronger Western states and to foreign countries. Beside that, the average age of the urban society rises. In addition to that an urban sprawl of the hinterland began: many families moved to the countryside, more an more city centers were characterized by vacant buildings and obsolescence. These shrinking processes require a communal correction: only a radical and consequent urban redevelopment is able to solve the problem of vacancy, decay and the financial emergency of local authorities.

New Perspectives of Cities in Change

To initiate this process the federal government decided to realize the IBA Urban Renewal Saxony-Anhalt 2010 in the year 2002 being organized by the foundation Bauhaus Dessau and state development company SALEG. As the first building exhibition in Germany this IBA focuses on a whole German Bundesland (state). 19 cities in Saxony-Anhalt take part in the IBA with their specific topics. The aim of that exhibition is to work out a special expertise for the renewal on a federal and communal basis and to generate exemplary projects of urban development with respect to the demographic change and the economic transformations. In the final year 2010 exemplary solutions for this urban renewal will be presented in the IBA cities, which will be transferable to other cities and regions.

Instruments and Methods

of the IBA Urban Renewal 2010 Support as regards content and consulting of the participating cities with respect to their development and the realization of their ideas build up the centre of that IBA work. Their main instruments and methods include e.g. civil participation, public actions as well as various permanent and temporary artistic and architectural interventions in urban spaces. Here new and inter-coordinated methods of funding and spatial management, urban and regional planning as well as its planning culture will be developed. The IBA-city network has been functioning as a very important platform for the exchange of experience and ideas. Out of all juridical regularities informal instruments and modes of operation are used because the situation of change requires undogmatic and adjusted strategies and operational concepts.

More Information

The publication of text and picture is based on the exhibition flyer "IBA meets IBA" by kindly courtesy of M:AI museum for architecture and und engeneering art in Nordrhein-Westfalen and of IBA Hamburg.
Photo: Doreen Ritzau