On the occasion of PASSAGEN 2020, the research center »Real-Time City« of TH Köln will open its two temporary city labs in Cologne. From January 13 until January 19, 2020, project works will be shown to the interested public that deal with the following issues: which access and right has every citizen to cities and, respectively, to its individual city, how are inner-cities infrastructural wastelands to cope with by municipal authorities, and, last but not least, to whom does this urban space originally and currently belong to? To authorities, proprietors, companies, or to us as citizens? The labs are located in two heavily disputed and symbolically charged venues in Cologne: at Alter Güterbahnhof in Cologne-Ehrenfeld and at Ebertplatz in Neustadt-Nord.

Gleisland

Students of KISD – Köln International School of Design will transform the cultural room »Westspitze« at Alter Güterbahnhof into an experimental lab for participatory urban visions and ideas. The exhibition »Gleisland« will show the chequered history of this venue characterized and stamped by physical mobilization and different flows of transport, goods, and material. Experimental works and exhibits will reflect on this very transformation of that venue from a former railway station to a new residential district – and will explore the potential of change and alteration of urban mobility structures.

Venue: Westspitze am Alten Güterbahnhof; Maarweg 172; 50825 Köln
Opening hours: January 13 – January 19, 2020, Mo – Wed 4 pm – 8 pm, Thur – Fri 4 pm – 10 pm, Sat 12 am (noon) – 6 pm
Cocktail party: January 16, 2020, starting 7 pm

Straßenland

Students of KISD – Köln International School of Design will transform the art room at Ebertplatz into an archive for and of future ideas and visions of a (post-)automobile city. The exhibition »Straßenland« hypothesizes the scenario of car-free city centers according to which former car-used spaces can be re-allocated as spaces for alternate and public use – contrary to what we know from using them as pure transit hubs or feeling comfort/discomfort when being there or just passing by. The exhibition will explore the potentials of such traditional/new/alternate mobility urban spaces by means of the concrete example of the Nord-Süd-Fahrt (North-South-Passage) in Cologne.

Venue: Gemeinde Köln, Ebertplatz Passage 7, 50688 Köln
Vernissage: January 13, 6 pm
Opening hours: January 13 – January 19, 2020, Mo – Sat 2 pm –10 pm, Sun 2 pm – 6 pm
Cocktail-Party: January 18 starting 6 pm

The exhibitions are open in the context of PASSAGEN design festival in Cologne. On the occasion of PASSAGEN, up to 200 exhibitions are held in art rooms, salons, and galleries mostly located in Cologne’s city center with approximately 150,000 visitors in total.

KISDconference »The Invisible City«

As an accompanying event, KISD – Köln International School of Design of TH Köln will on Friday, January 17, host the KISDconference »Die unsichtbare Stadt« (»The Invisible City«) at Alte Feuerwache Köln. The entrance is free. We kindly ask for registration.

Organization
Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler & Mario Frank with Julian Hoffmann and students of KISD of TH Köln
The exhibitions and the conference will be held in the context of the joint research project of the City of Cologne (Department Urban Development, Planning, and Construction) and TH Köln (Design Theory and Research, Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler).
Picture: Lars Köppl & Jennifer Zachlod