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Newsletter 115 from 11/06/2009

Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA)
Fürst-Pückler-Land

1. "IBA meets IBA" exhibition travels to Lusatia
2. IBA Lusatia has valuable input at IBA Basel
3. Landmark nominated for best building of 2009
4. International Biennial in São Paulo showcases IBA projects
5. Muskau Arch recognised as National Geopark of Poland
6. 2009 visitor numbers up for IBA tour service
7. "Dreams of Lusatia" at Cottbus Film Festival

(1) "IBA meets IBA" exhibition travels to Lusatia

The IBA is rapidly approaching its grand finale in the coming year. A taste of what is to come in this special year will be on offer on 25 November 2009 at 16:00 hrs. when the "IBA meets IBA" exhibition opens on the IBA Terraces in Großräschen. Under the curatorship of the IBA Hamburg and the M.AI Museum of Architecture and the Art of Engineering in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the exhibition is a visual reminder of the wealth of experience gathered over the last 100 years by the very different International Building Exhibitions in Germany. It shows the answers they have found - and the answers they are still finding - in seeking to press ahead with future-oriented and exemplary urban development and environmental planning. Representatives of the current Building Exhibitions in Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Basel and from the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs will be present at the opening of the exhibition. The touring exhibition will be staying at the IBA Terraces until 7 March and entry to the exhibition is free of charge.

(2) IBA Lusatia has valuable input at IBA Basel

The preparations for the trinational IBA Basel 2020 are already in full swing. Frédéric Duvinage, Director of the Trinational Eurodistrict Basel, recently invited the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land to Rheinfelden with a view to brainstorming and sharing experiences in a bid to widen the base of ideas and inspiration for the forthcoming Building Exhibition. Representatives from the worlds of politics and business, architectural firms and associations, and from other initiatives showed a keen interest in the IBA industrial heritage projects and its efforts to preserve these monuments of the industrial past in Lusatia. "Needless to say, our projects and areas of focus cannot be transferred wholly to Rheinfelden and the trinational urban region of Basel", said Prof. Kuhn, "but we were able to demonstrate the importance of convincing ideas, good working partnerships and strategies for sustainable redevelopment in terms of land use and management." Thus it was possible to draw analogies in respect of the Plessa lignite-fired power plant and the Lauchhammer bio-towers as well as in relation to the current efforts being made by Germany and Switzerland to rescue the oldest run-of-river power station in Europe. The IBA projects in Lusatia will be on display at Rheinfelden Town Hall until the beginning of December.
More information on IBA Basel

(3) Landmark nominated for best building of 2009

The 30-metre high rust-coloured viewing tower in the Lusatian Lakeland, which was designed by Stefan Giers and Susanne Gabriel for an IBA competition entry, was one of 26 nominations for an award for the best building in Germany in 2009. The nominations and winner of the award will be on display at the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt/Main from 14 November 2009 to 17 January 2010. The award was won by a functional building, namely the restaurant at the Trumpf works in Ditzingen, which was designed and project-managed by Berlin-based architectural firm Barkow Leibinger Architekten. Architect Stefan Giers is proud that his dramatic Corten steel building on Sedlitz Lake near Senftenberg was nominated for the award. "The tower is a reminder of the eventful history of the region, and I am pleased that it has not just attracted attention in the architectural world but has also captured the imagination of the people", said Stefan Giers. Endorsing its appeal, IBA Director Rolf Kuhn added: "Since it opened last year it has attracted thousands of visitors. It has become a symbol of the emerging Lusatian Lakeland and has exceeded all expectations". Besides the landmark there are other outstanding projects from east Germany on show, including the Ozeaneum public aquarium in Stralsund, the Temporäre Kunsthalle art gallery in Berlin and the Mittelpunktbibliothek library in Berlin-Köpenick. The exhibition will be opened on 13 November at 17:00 hrs.

(4) International Biennial in São Paulo showcases IBA projects

A contribution from the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land will be on show at the International Architecture Biennial São Paulo (BIA) until 6 December. The exhibition has been held in the Brazilian capital of culture since 1973 and this year's exhibition will feature international contributions to city design and contemporary urban development concepts under the heading "ECOS Urbanos - Urban Echoes". Germany will also be present for the third time, showcasing the achievements of German architects, planners, engineers and artists to the world of the professionals. "Cidade para todos - City for All - Ways to Vision" is the title given to this feature which is under the curatorship of the IBA Hamburg and exhibits 32 projects, such as houses, neighbourhoods, social programmes, urban development concepts and artistic intervention. It also includes the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, the Prager Straße street in Dresden, the Stadtteilmütter Neukölln neighbourhood integration and self-help project, but also projects run by the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land, such as the 30-metre high landmark designed by Stefan Giers and Susanne Gabriel, the vision of the 1000-metre long floating footbridge on Sedlitz Lake, and the F60 visitor mine in Lichterfeld. The exhibition conveys the three visions of the city of tomorrow, namely "cosmopolis", "metrozones" and "ecoscapes".
More information

(5) Muskau Arch recognised as National Geopark of Poland

The transnational Muskau Arch on the river Neisse has been recognised as a National Geopark in Germany since 2006. Now Poland has followed suit. Henryk Jezierski of the Ministry of the Environment recently attended the Poznań International Tourism Exhibition where he handed over a certificate bearing official confirmation that the scenic push moraine had been designated the first National Geopark in Poland. Marcin Jabłoński, Marshal of Lubusz Voivodeship, also underlined the importance it would bring for the development of a strong culture of geotourism. "This formal recognition will make it easier to tackle further projects, perhaps increasing the emphasis on cross-border publicity and tourism services", said IBA project manager David Lang, "but we are already on the right track, having introduced the tour guide training courses for the first time this year".

(6) 2009 visitor numbers up for IBA tour service

The IBA Terraces is a popular drop-in centre for visitors from near and far who want to find out about the transformation of the landscape in Lusatia. Almost 8100 visitors set off on IBA tours this season to the "Mars" lunar landscape, to Lusatian industrial giants, to old cultural heritage sites and to the Lusatian Lakeland. "That is 1000 more people than in 2008", said Ingolf Weichelt of the tour service on the IBA Terraces. The classic "Trip to Mars" was still on the list of favourites from among the ten action tours, jeep safaris and coach trips offered by the tour service. "It is a walk on the bed of the emerging Lake Ilse and has been on offer since 2002", explained Ingolf Weichelt, "but we probably won't be able to run this tour after the IBA Finale in 2010 because the rising water level will then make it impossible to continue". Booking numbers were also high for the cycle tour "From Wasteland to Water" and for the jeep safari to Meuro open-cast mine. Even when the official season is over it will still be possible to book tour modules for individual tours over the winter. Such tours even accounted for almost three-quarters of the demand this year.

(7) "Dreams of Lusatia" at Cottbus Film Festival

The Festival of Eastern European Film, which will be held in Cottbus from 10 to 15 November, will extend its focus beyond the Black Sea region to Lusatia. Bernhard Sallmann's dramatised documentary "Dreams of Lusatia" will be showing on 11 November. The 85-minute kaleidoscopic movie recently celebrated its screen premiere at the DOK Leipzig festival. It shows the character of the post-mining landscape in powerful and brilliantly orchestrated scenes and introduces five protagonists, including IBA Director Professor Rolf Kuhn, landscape architect Professor Helmut Rippl, wolf whisperer Stefan Kaasche, farmer Johannes Kapelle and radio ham Wolfgang Fietze, all of whom talk about their life and work in Lusatia and their visions for the future of the region.
Students of architecture at the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU Cottbus) also make an appearance, engaging with the Welzow open-cast mining landscape on an artistic level and recording their personal projections in five short documentaries which will be shown on 10 November.
Dreams of Lusatia
Filmfestival


last update: 1/26/2017 13:13