makes the city" is listed as one of twelve "new tasks for urban development" (BMVBW 2005:
BBR, p. VI); and, although the "Initiative for Architecture and Building Culture" with its interest
in quality assurance and a model role for the federal government as project sponsor in building
cultural matters, the main part of the report still fails to take account of experience gathered in
this new cross-sectional policy area.
The main focus of the initiative is to promote greater public and private engagement for quality
in the built environment. In this context, "building culture" can be understood as formula for a
higher level of quality in urban design processes with respect to task formulation, the
development of solutions, the organisation of procedures and management of implementation,
and the actual results of building and planning, including upkeep and operation. Economic
structural change, demographic developments, and value change in society have transformed
underlying conditions: "downsizing and upgrading" are the focal strategies for urban
development without growth. Building cultural endeavours will therefore have to concentrate
increasingly on existing building stock and on dealing with vacant sites and buildings.
been expected by the end of 2005. But just over a month later the bill was thrown out in the
upper chamber, the Bundesrat, where the Christian Democrats had the upper hand. Certain states
insisted on defining building culture as art, which falls under the cultural competence of the
states. The bill was sent to the mediation committee who adjourned the debate after two fruitless
attempts at finding a compromise. The second convention planned for November 2005 in Berlin
had to be postponed following the miscarriage of the project. The second report on the building
culture situation was, however, presented in the second half of 2005 (BMBW 2005:
Weeber/Weeber/Khler).
After the general election and coalition negotiations in late 2005, new hope was found.
Establishment of a Federal Foundation for Building Culture was laid down in the coalition
agreement. On 3 May 2006, the federal cabinet approved the pertinent bill submitted by the
ministry. And the federal government earmarked some six million euros for the period up to 2009
for setting up and operating the foundation.
In addition to the biennial Convention on Building Culture, the communication tools planned for
the foundation include a two-yearly status report on building culture by an independent body,
and a "black and white paper" presenting negative and positive examples. Also under discussion
are the choice of a city as "capital" and thus as a "stage" for building culture, and a "national
experiment" in building culture emphasising social, technological, and design innovation. The
federal initiative supports a wide range of projects, measures, and activities that promote the
public discourse and education on building culture, honour constructive and innovative
contributions, enhance design quality, broaden the knowledge base, and improve the publicising
of German architectural and engineering accomplishments and the international presentation of
the country, for example at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
From the beginnings of the nation-wide initiative, North Rhine-Westphalia has shown a
particularly consistent commitment to building culture - with a marked focus on urban planning.
At the new year reception of the chamber of architects, the then North Rhine-Westphalian
minister of urban development and housing, culture and sport declared building culture to be a
"top priority" issue. In November of the same year, the "NRW Urban Building Culture
Memorandum" appeared, setting out objectives and possible activities for the ten-year Urban
Building Culture Initiative. The state initiative "aims to achieve quality investment in the
building sector, to link public and private sector activities, to raise the profile of locations and
enhance the durability of architecture and urban planning" (Vesper 2002, 30). As a central venue
for addressing urban building culture and bundling state activities, North Rhine-Westphalia set
up the "European House of Urban Culture" in Gelsenkirchen in May 2003.
Two things are striking about the North Rhine-Westphalian initiative: first, that NRW has
apparently succeeded where others have not even recognised the problem, namely the need to
link different fields of action, professional and policy areas; and, second, that key topics and
problems have been tackled - as the titles of pilot projects and events show:
the series of state competitions "Stadt macht Platz - NRW macht Pltze" ("City Makes
Space - NRW Makes Spaces") (2002 to 2006): the implementation of winning design and
use concepts for public spaces is funded by means of the programme
"Stdtebaufrderung" (urban development promotion grants); in the third round a twophase procedure was adopted to include participatory aspects;
the chamber of architects' "1000 Gaps" pilot project (2003 to 2005): after taking
inventory of vacant lots, the "Infill!" competition in October 2005 awarded prizes for
concepts and projects for the exemplary use of "gaps" (infill sites);
the "NRWurbanism" meeting of the European House of Urban Culture with cooperation
partners (2004): Are Urban Planning New Principles Needed in NRW? Can the principles
of the American "New Urbanism" movement directed against urban sprawl be
meaningfully transferred?;
the "Prize for Exemplary Commercial Architecture" competition staged by the European
House of Urban Culture with cooperation partners (2004): the competition honoured
commercial buildings and commercial ensembles outstanding in architectural quality and
urban integration, in their satisfaction of user requirements and the demands of
environmental protection and the conservation of the building stock and historic
monuments;
the annual congress of the European House of Urban Culture with cooperation partners
under the heading "[Building] Reality" (2005): discussion on the seemingly banal, like
industrial estates, arterial roads, single-family homes, etc., with the aim of "analysing the
scope for quality in everyday reality and to identify potential for building cultural
improvements";
the "Possible Places - Image Worlds, Planners Worlds" workshop organised by the
European House of Urban Culture with cooperation partners (2005): experiments in the
exploration of space by different disciplines and professions (photographers,
The singular taste of many a client and architect producing such buildings has been regularly
pilloried on the "last pages" of specialist journals. Experts are divided on whether this is
justified. When the editors of the "deutsche bauzeitschrift" (db) presented and commented on
such examples at a conference on architectural criticism (Dechau 2003),(7) the ensuing
discussion denounced the procedure as intolerant. Bad examples can, however, serve as material
for discussion and for illustrative purposes - in the training of architects, too - especially if the
criticism is accompanied by well-founded arguments and (better) alternative designs: "What I've
always wanted to demolish in Stuttgart" was one design assignment set students of the Technical
University in Stuttgart.(8)
In this context, the black and white book project of the Federal Foundation for Building Culture
can prove interesting with its planned documentation of "successes and sins in building culture"
(Ganser 2002, 45). Here, too, there is likely to be controversy about who is really able and
entitled to judge the quality of architecture and urban planning on behalf of society. But the
exchange, indeed the clash of arguments and public positions on quality issues helps to decipher
design codes and sharpen critical faculties.
The discussion of architecture and urban planning has come to play a much greater role in the
media than some years ago; but the press offers little systematic critique of issues in these fields.
Both technical journals and the feature sections of newspapers take critical notice almost
exclusively of ambitious and prominent structures and hence of only a tiny section of actual
building activities. The aesthetic dimension predominates. Greater attention needs to be paid to
such criteria as usability, land-use integration, and urban objectives, as well as ecological,
economic, social, and cultural compatibility. The specialist press addresses everyday architecture
and urban development at best in polemic commentary.
Throughout the country there are now many institutions and venues for communicating and
elucidating architectural and planning issues (Becker 2002): architectural museums, galleries,
and centres; planner centres, planer forums; series of events like the "Architecture Quartet"
organised by the Federal Chamber of Architects; a wide range of prizes and awards for
successful buildings and/or urban planning concepts. But a broad impact has yet to be achieved:
the expert public remains the principal addressee.
The decision by the Bundestag to initiate a quality campaign for building culture included a
commitment to using federal research programmes more extensively for advancing basic
knowledge in the field. The research programme "Building and Living in the 21 st Century"
organised by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and research by the
Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS) on experimental
housing and urban development (ExWoSt) have been able to make a valuable contribution. A
number of expert reports on building culture have been prepared for the federal government, for
instance, on the extent to which building cultural considerations have already been integrated
into "ExWoSt" and how such integration can be intensified (BBR 2004: Doehler/Reuther); on the
"Building Cultural Significance of GVFG Measures"(9) as the basis for a manual on "The Link
between Building Culture and the Traffic Infrastructure" (BMVBW 2005: Machule et al.); and
on "Building Culture in the Urban Renewal Process," an aid-to-work for the towns and cities
participating in the Urban Renewal East programme, with an appeal to include "guidelines on
extremely comprehensive sense" (Pieper 2005, 14), analysis from a building history perspective
"of the foundations of all artistic building immanent in architecture and hence necessarily
anthropologically determined" is indispensable (ibid. 18). In view of what he regards as the
inevitable "New Historicism," Thomas Sieverts demands that "the architecture and urban
planning curriculum must return to a more intensive concern with the history of urban
development;" knowledge is needed of "numerous 'classical' examples of urban development at
least as points of reference" against which current designs can be more soundly appraised is
"indispensable" (Sieverts 2004, 146).
Heritage management and the conservation of historic monuments as elements of building
culture seem to be better established in the minds of a broader public (Khler 2002, 47). The lay
public is less concerned with authentic original structures than with the atmosphere of the past.
The conservation of historic monuments and heritage management need to be reformed. Dealing
with the building-cultural heritage demands forward-looking use concepts for buildings created
for other users and uses. The process of striking a balance between original substance and
usability is becoming more acute. Since the historical inventory is not a renewable resource, a
"new appreciation of durability" needs to be achieved "for the general promotion of
sustainability in heritage management and building culture" (Kaltenbrunner 2005, 359).
The expert community largely agrees that aspects of everyday architecture usually caught in the
blind spot need to be examined more closely from a building cultural perspective, and that
attention ought not to be directed solely towards spectacular, usually stand-alone, and often selfreferential development projects. The built environment consists largely of inconspicuous
buildings and "non-architecture." The German Builder Prize (Deutscher Bauherrenpreis)
(13) awarded since 1986 by the KOOPERATION working group honours outstanding
achievements in residential development, thus presenting awards in a more everyday field of
building activity. This inspired the architecture journalist Wolfgang Kil to an enthusiastic
proposal for renaming the prize the "Grand Prix for Intrepid Normality" (Kil 2003, 5).
Among the works that count as everyday structures and which have therefore received even less
attention under the heading of building culture than residential building are traffic structures and
technical infrastructure facilities.(14) A "manual" presenting traffic structures that not only
improve traffic conditions but also make a positive contribution to the cityscape and to good
urban architecture is a move in the right direction. Other valuable aspects of this project are an
analysis of the eight exemplary structures with regard to both "planning and decision-making
processes" and to "impression, implementation, and use," as well as expert interviews and user
surveys (BMVBW 2005: Machule et al., 35 ff.).
The focus of building cultural activities is without doubt public space (ffentlicher Raum und
Stadtgestalt 2002; BMVBW 2005: Weeber/Weeber/Khler, 11 ff.); but the professional
community perceives and judges the state and development of public space in a highly
ambivalent fashion. On the one hand they debate a loss of functions, depopulation,
commercialisation, and privatisation, and on the other they evoke a renaissance and revitalization
of public space (Harlander/Kuhn 2004, 10 ff.; Selle 2004, 131 ff.). These contradictions are
attributable to a lack of theoretical and empirical underpinning. For instance, formal (legal)
privatisation does not necessarily mean the actual denial of access to the public. The tasks facing
building culture with respect to public space are to recover, re-interpret, improve, interlink, and
safeguard. Much has already been undertaken in this direction, for example the series of state
competitions "Stadt macht Platz - NRW macht Pltze" ("City Makes Space - NRW Makes
Spaces") (2002 to 2006) mentioned in section 2, and the "Squares, Parks and Panoramas" project
in which the Stuttgart municipality addressed the perspectives for public space in 2001.
The international importance of this area of action is reflected by the European Prize for Urban
Public Space organised by six renowned European architectural institutions for the first time in
2000.(15) In November 2005 the prize was staged for the fourth time; it is to be presented in
Barcelona in July 2006. In view of the risk of "homogenisation and impoverishment of the urban
landscape," the prize aims to "highlight the importance of public space as a catalyst of public
life" and to recognise and promote "activities for the recovery of areas of social cohesion in
European cities through transforming and improving public space."
Overall, building culture as an area of policy must gain in substance and clarity; action is needed
in the following fields:
Closer networking and new coalitions between actors from various professions: in
addition to urban and landscape planning, landscape planning, monument conservation
and heritage management, engineering, architecture, and urban development the sectors
concerned include the housing, building, and real estate industries, private developers,
and, especially, the media. The key role of urban development promotion as one of the
few still effective control tools makes it particularly urgent to establish solid strategic
partnerships between the proponents of building culture and the agents of urban
development promotion.
Since the launch of the initiative in the autumn of 2000, the discussion has gained in stature; the
growing attention to quality is certainly partly the reason why the federal, state, and local
governments have been able to present so many examples of high-standard design. It is still too
early for any systematic performance review. But a Federal Foundation for Building Culture is
likely to assume a key mediating and strategic role in developments. Despite the great potential
for conflict that such a procedure implies, it is vital to intensify the debate on quality with
reference to positive and negative examples. This is necessary not least of all because spatial and
temporal priorities for intervention and investment in shrinking cities and regions need to be set
that are also justified on grounds of quality. And this should be done with the greatest possible
transparency and expertise.
Notes
(15) Centre de Cultura Contempornia de Barcelona, Institut Franais d'Architecture (Paris), The
Architecture Foundation (London), Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Rotterdam),
Architekturzentrum Wien and the Museum of Finnish Architecture (Helsinki); the best works are
documented and made accessible in the European Archive of Urban Public Space
(www.kommunalweb.de/dateien/wettbewerbe/cccb2006.pdf). (back)
(16) The discrepancy between ambitious design and usability deficiencies brought severe
criticism from attorney and patron of the arts Peter Raue in the Berliner Tagesspiegel of 4 March
2006, answered by the architect Gnter Behnisch on 11 March. (back)
(17) "Adieu Pariser Platz! Ist die Akademie der Knste zu retten? Pldoyer fr die Rckkehr zum
Hanseatenweg. Und zum Wesentlichen"/by Peter Raue (Der Tagesspiegel of 4 March 2006).
(back)
(18) U(lrich) Conrads, Untauglich, in: Bauwelt, H. 47 (1986), 1778-1780. (back)
(19) Manfred Sack, Der Jahrhundertfehler, in: "Die Zeit" of 20 April 1990. (back)
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