ur9anize! Festival 2018

Christina Schraml

In 2018, for the third time the Social Design Studio was a programme partner of the annual urbanize! Festival. Under the motto “Grätzelhood – Globale Stadt Lokal Gestalten” (Neighbourhood – Shaping the global city locally) the key question was approached whether and how a neighbourhood can function as a starting point for self-empowerment, participation and democratization.

Almost every person on this planet has them. They are close by even if you do not always see them. They can be at different stages in their lives, with various social, economic and cultural backgrounds. Yet, they are growing up on the same street. Take the same tram to work. Go to the same supermarket around the corner. They can live wall to wall but yet remain forever strange: Neighbours.

Apart from being a nexus of social life based on a place of residence, what exactly generates a neighbourhood and what forms may it take? Are neighbours becoming less or more important in an increasingly individualized and mobile society?

Along the programme of the urbanize! Festival 2018 the Social Design Studio addressed these questions through different perspectives on “neighbourhood”. The contributions ranged from minimal interventions at the festival’s headquarter sharing international experiences of neighbourhood, a workshop exploring the possibilities of urban furniture to create spaces of encounters among neighbours (Das andere Möbel), a performance inspired by the relationship between dog and human (Hunde aller Talente), to a collective intersubjective map of the “grätzelhood” around Nordbahn-Halle through walking (Shared Walks).

Moreover, five urban explorations in the neighbourhood between Prater and Danube looking at “neighbourhood” on various scales were offered: During the tour “Handelskai 214” we searched for planning utopias for a communal life and – together with residents and experts – experienced the built reality and future of social housing in Vienna. The tour “Knotenpunkt Nachbarschaft” offered insights into the neighbourly everyday life at an intersection asking where the paths of neighbours cross and what remains hidden. During the exploration “Urban Animals” the local ornithologist Martin Riesing brought participants closer to their everyday environment and the “wilderness” in the city. Another tour, “Aussicht auf nachbarschaftliche Zukunft”, lead to the top of the social housing complex Lassalle-Hof, where the architect Nikolai Ritter shared his expertise of developing community projects out of acute necessity. Last but not least, the artist Sofie Thorsen opened up her studio to host a talk with the sculptor Josef Schagerl, who realized many playground sculptures in the early 1950s to mid60s, to reflect historical and current approaches to plan and to live a neighbourhood.

By means of this varied programme, we wanted to open up a dialogue of exchange and discuss in which ways neighbours organize their co-existence and thereby contribute in the “(re)production” of a grätzelhood. After all, the concept of neighbourship is not something that is given and cannot be altered – it is a social framework that people are constantly (re)producing.

Time: 24.– 28.10.2018
Location: Nordbahnhalle Wien (Festivalzentrale)
Team: Team: Brigitte Felderer and Christina Schraml with contributions by Catalin Betz; Sophie Bösker; Eliza Chojnacka; Ilkin Beste Cirak; Frank Daubenfeld; Eylem Ertürk; Citali Gomez Escobar; Martin Färber; Clara Hirschmanner; Marlene Hübner; Neslihan Kiran; Dieter Lang; Virginia Lui; Peter Oroszlany; Lisa Puchner; Bernd Rohrauer; David Scheßl; Amelie Schlemmer; Alberta Sinani; Cosima Terrasse and Raphael Volkmer Cooperation Partners: urbanize! Festival; Residents of Handelskai 214; Finn Erschen Architekt; Robert Haranza/querkraft Architekten; Brigitte Jedelsky; Katharina Kratky; Pfarre Machstraße; Restaurant Gedeihen; Aki Lee; Martin Riesing; Nikolai Ritter; Josef Schagerl; Shared Walks; Sofie Thorsen; Rosemarie Untner and the wohnpartner team
Links: www.urbanize.at