Research

The interests and opinions in and about a city are manifold and hardly manageable. Opinions have to assert themselves and interests need to be balanced so that the city can continue to develop and shape itself for the benefit of all. However, many of these opinions and interests are lost, either because of a lack of will or expression or because of the sheer overwhelming power of the other opinion.

A bicycle handlebar and saddle become a bull’s head. This plastic collage, also called assemblage, was created by the artist Pablo Picasso in the 1940s, which entered the art world under the title “Tête de taureau”. In the visual arts, a working method that many artists use, the term assemblage has gained a foothold in other fields as well. So also in urban research, in which the concept of assemblage is applied to the exploration, description and analysis of the urban.

At the place where Lichtstrasse begins in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, there are street signs covered in stickers, and the walls at the corner are plastered with concert posters. The sides of the residential buildings are colourfully painted; upon entering a rear courtyard one discovers ateliers, and a few steps further, the skeleton of a former factory, the steel struts of which serve as parking bays for a couple of cars. In this industrial wasteland the creative avant-garde gratefully took possession of a large urban playground — which, however, is in danger of disappearing.

Cologne Ehrenfeld is a neighborhood with a broad and diverse cultural scene that shapes the attitude to life in the district. But anyone who observes current developments knows that many initiatives and cultural venues are fighting for survival. But what do we do when these hubs of public life disappear? Where do we find new places for the shared exchange of ideas and creative action? Can derelict places, such as the unused railroad arches on Hüttenstraße in Ehrenfeld, perhaps be such a place?