Events | #LNDI2020: The public space in times of crisis
Online | June 19, 2020 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Global crises shape the public space. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, life has largely shifted into the private and digital realms. It will probably be a long time before subways and concert halls fill up again, while at the same time hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest against police violence and racism. How must the public space change in order to reconcile social participation and social distancing? How can life despite recurring crises be made socially acceptable? Urban planning and architecture are increasingly asked to investigate the resilience of spaces.
Thomas Mann Fellows Doris Kleilein and Friederike Meyer will talk with Oliver Elser and Felix Weisbrich about the impressions and events of the past months and ask about their significance for the public space. The conversation will be in German.
Oliver Elser is curator at the German Museum of Architecture (DAM) in Frankfurt am Main. In 2016 he curated "Making Heimat", the German Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. At DAM he has shown exhibitions on Brutalism, Postmodernism, 20th century architectural models and Simon Ungers. In 2012/13 he was substitute professor for scenography at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz. As a freelance curator he conceived the exhibition "Housing Models: Experimentation and Everyday Life" (Vienna, Sofia and Belgrade) together with Michael Rieper. Since 1999, he has developed the project "Special Models" together with the artist Oliver Croy, last presented in 2013 at the Art Biennale in Venice in the "Palazzo Enciclopedico".
Doris Kleilein is an architect, author and since 2018 director of the architectural book publishing house JOVIS in Berlin. After studying architecture in Berlin and Winnipeg, she co-founded the architectural office bromsky and worked as a freelance author for radio, print and online with a focus on architecture, city and politics. From 2005 to 2018 she was editor of the architecture journal Bauwelt, where she published mainly on new housing models, urban development and the effects of migration on architecture and urban planning. In cooperation with Ballhaus Naunynstraße she curated performative courses in urban space. In 2014 she was appointed to the Women's Advisory Council of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment.
Friederike Meyer is an architecture journalist in Berlin. She is interested in the interface between architecture, urban development and society. She studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen and as a DAAD scholarship holder at the University of Washington in Seattle. She trained as a journalist at the Protestant Media Academy in Berlin and has since worked as an author, presenter and juror. In Kaiserslautern she teaches architectural communication. From 2000 to 2017 she was editor of the architecture journal Bauwelt. Since 2017, she has been editor-in-chief of the BauNetz newsroom.
Felix Weisbrich is head of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Roads and Green Spaces department and is considered the mastermind behind the Berlin pop-up bike lanes, which were set up in a very short time during the first Corona months. He studied forestry science and worked in various functions in the forestry administration of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: as forestry policy advisor in the Ministry of Agriculture in Schwerin, as logistician for energy wood production and as head of the forestry office in Bad Doberan. He was involved in questions of administrative modernization, represented the highest forestry authority in legislative procedures and in conflicts over construction and use, e.g. in the coastal forests around Heiligendamm. In his current position he is responsible for complex public spaces such as Görlitzer Park and the traffic systems in one of the most densely populated urban areas in Europe.
Organized by Thomas Mann House, the German Museum of Architecture (DAM) in Frankfurt am Main, Jovis Verlag and the online magazine BauNetz as part of the German Federal Foreign Office's Long Night of Ideas 2020.
The Thomas Mann Fellowships are funded by the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung.
The German Federal Foreign Office and its partners cordially invite you to take part in the fifth "Long Night of Ideas" on June 19. How can culture continue to play its vital role even in times of Corona? How can it unfold its unique powers even in times of crisis? The "Long Night of Ideas", – for the first time a digital program only, will approach these questions.
From the topic of sustainability of the club scene to Southeastern European films and the science slam on European science policy: under the title "Cultures of the Future - Future of Cultures", more than a dozen digital events will deal with the future of cultural life. Because: Especially in times of Corona, when direct human contact must remain limited, overcoming this physical distance through culture is all the more important - for the individual as well as for society. The Long Night of Ideas is a team effort by the Federal Foreign Office, its intermediary organizations and other strong partners from civil society, research and science organizations and private foundations. | #LNDI2020
