Summer semester 2017

• Catalogue for Summer Semester 2017 01.pdf

Module: Spatial Planning      2 SWS/ 3 CP
Prof. Dr. phil. habil. Max Welch Guerra        

L "Urbanism and Politics, European Planning Culture in the 20th Century”

Content
Urbanism is often investigated as a sphere that develops independently of politics and society, following internal dynamics. The lecture series will criticize this approach by shifting focus towards the promoter of public planning: state institutions at different levels and under different socio-political conditions in Europe, the continent where urban planning reached its strongest position during the 20th century.

According to research projects and PhD programmes that are currently directed by the Chair for Spatial Planning and Spatial Research (Raumplanung und Raumforschung), we will pay special attention on the dependence of urbanism and spatial planning on the political system in which it develops. In doing so, we will avoid the concentration on the few European countries that are usually considered in main stream planning history discussion.

Within the lecture series, we will tackle some major issues, such as Welfare State, modernity, Bauhaus, dictatorship and historiography. Considered geographical contexts will include some of the cities investigated within our research projects and PhD programmes: Lisbon, Madrid, Ferrara, Rome, Berlin, Weimar, Prague and Moscow. Lectures will be given both by scholars of the BUW and by invited guests.

Module: Spatial Planning      2 SWS/ 3 CP 
Karl Eckert, M.Sc.        

S "Spatial Impacts of the EU”

Content
The European Union is heavily investing in the renovation of its urban environment in a manner mirrored on no other continent. This is in recognition of the importance cities hold to realize broad political goals such as the Europe 2020 Strategy of a "smart, sustainable and inclusive" growth for the Union. Critical views and opposing opinions become marginalized as broad EU policies become mainstreamed and certain historical, cultural, socio-economic, environmental aspects (among others) are left out if not intentionally ignored. This makes EU funds and their use an important subject to debate, especially in sight of the newly reorganized current programming period which, at least on the surface, represents a new holistic and sustainable approach. But is this really the case?

The seminar will begin with the presentation of research results and experience, including a theoretical foundation for the interpretation of said programming and analytical methods. Topics such as "territorial cohesion" and the urban dimension of EU eastern expansion will be presented and help explain the impact of Cohesion Policy on the city and state level. Students will then undertake their own research on a topic of personal interest related to the priorities and political goals of the EU. At the end of the seminar students shall be able to navigate through EU policy and positively interpret its effect on cities and be empowered to propose new and creative designs for its future use

Course dates:
16.05.2017
06.06.2017
13.06.2017
20.06.2017
27.06.2017
11.07.2017

Module: Spatial Planning      2 SWS/ 3 CP 
Dipl.-Arch. Zinovia Foka         

S "Spaces of Memory: Exploring Processes of Remembering and Forgetting in Urban Public Space”

Content 
‘Memory is both burden and liberation’, declares Mark Crinson (2005) in the introduction of his edited volume ‘Urban Memory’. Remembering and forgetting - one cannot exist without the other - are largely structuring our experience of contemporary urban life. Urban public spaces everywhere in the world are dominated by aspects of the past, either celebrated and repackaged for touristic consumption, or recognized and commemorated as traumatic, violent, and oppressive. Statues, memorials, plaques, rehabilitated buildings, museums and archives exist as memory containers, informing our urban experience, both as residents as well as visitors.

This course will explore the contested field of urban memory through historical and contemporary examples situated in diverse cultural, political and social contexts. Departing from an understanding of urban memory as a social and spatial process, it will inquire into the ways different pasts have been selectively appropriated, vested with meanings, as well as revisited or contested. The analysis of the material will be structured in three main areas of interest: a) memory and power, b) memory and identity, c) memory and community. How have different power regimes structured national memory and pride through selective remembering and forgetting? What cultural and civic elements have been employed to foster a shared sense of identity that bonds communities together? What kinds of pasts have been silenced in dominant national narratives, leading to marginalization and exclusion? In what ways have these narratives been questioned and revisited?

Underlying premise of this seminar is an understanding of urban memory as a construct of the present, which looks into history and employs elements of the past to achieve a desired future. Thus, our class discussions will not only focus on inquiries into established narratives, but also raise questions about what kind of futures are produced from certain kinds of pasts’ promotions, erasures and revisions.

Course Dates:
12.04.2017, 13:30 – 16:45 pm (Wednesday!)
24.04.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
08.05.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
22.05.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
19.06.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
26.06.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am

Module: Transfer of Methods and Expertise   2 SWS/ 3 CP
Prof. Dr. Frank Eckardt

S "Thesis Writing Seminar”

Content 
This seminar allows students to get an insight into recent research on urban subjects from a variety of disciplines and professional backgrounds. Students can present their work their own work (PhD or master thesis) and will be offered a forum for discussion for different topics relevant in urban research

Course dates:
11.04.2017, 13:30 - 15:00 pm
09.05.2017, 13:30 - 17:00 pm
16.05.2017, 09:00 - 12:30 am 

Module: Study Project   16 SWS/ 21 CP 
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd Nentwig, Prof. Dr. Frank Eckardt, Vertr.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sven Schneider, Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Philippe Schmidt M. Sc.      

P "Rural stocks and flows: Urban metabolism in small Cities´ development”

Content
In urban design and planning, the street is considered as initial to any urban activity like transport, exchange of goods and people while at the same time bearing the invisible arteria for any city’s public infrastructure like energy, water or waste. Thus, for the development of new towns in rapidly urbanizing regions the understanding of material flows and circulation within the urban system is crucial when it comes about any building activity that determines the urban form and what we finally experience as urban, including open and public space and an appropriate living environment. In our study project, we want to work out, in how far the concept of ‘Urban Metabolism’ can help clarify these interrelations and interdependencies in the question about more local and decentralised versus global and centralised systems of stocks and flows and their meaning for urban areas. While any building activity is an intervention into the natural household, easily visible through the consumption of land and resources, well-balanced models that consider both the requirements of urban amenities and a sustainable approach for a future development seem still to be more ideal than real.

To develop such models, the study project “Rural stocks and flows – urban metabolism in small cities’ development” aims at understanding how far urban metabolism can respond to the development and needs of future cities. Participants will be analysing urban patterns and flows of small cities, learn about the context between urban metabolism and its spatial implications and apply tools and methods for a spatial analysis and finally implement that knowledge in spatial models through the configuration of existing urban schemes. The findings should also make visible the opportunities and limitations of such concepts for disciplines concerned with urban development, taking into account environmental, social and economic factors. Finally, we will deduce and adapt conclusions of our research findings from the Northern hemisphere to the global South in consideration of the development of small cities in Ethiopia.

Module: Study Project   
Prof. Dr. Frank Eckardt      

S "Small cities: culture, Society, economy, politics and planning”

Content
Small cities are little researched in urban studies. New York, Shanghai, Berlin…they are getting all the attention. In reality however, most people live in small and medium size places. Does this mean that we have a bias in urban studies and that our concepts are not explaining urban life in small cities as they do in the metropolitan areas? In this seminar, we will focus on the particularities of what it means to live in places with a low number of inhabitants. In five blocks, students are asked to present a case that is known to them to analysis the specific difference of small cities regarding culture, society, economy, politics, and planning.

Literatur
David Bell and Mark Jayne (2006) Conzeptualizing small cities. In: Bell and Jayne (eds) Small cities: urban experience beyond themetropolis. London: Routledge, 1-18. Ofori-Amoah, Benjamin (2007) Introduction. In: Ofori-Amoah (ed) Beyond the metropolis : urban geography as if small cities mattered, Lanham: Univ. of America Press, 3-17

Course dates:
11.04.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
25.04.2017, 13:30 – 17:00 pm
09.05.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 am
23.05.2017, 13:30 – 17:00 pm
20.06.2017, 09:15 – 12:30 pm

Module: Study Project   
Vertr.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sven Schneider      

S "Computational Urban Analysis”

Content
Locating and dimensioning spatial objects and with it the creation of spaces is at the heart of architectural and urban design. Thereby it is necessary to precast the effects that design decisions have on the behaviour of the future users as well as to estimate the sustainability and resilience of the designed object (such as a city or a building). Computational analysis methods can help to support this process due to the fact that they can reveal properties that are hardly recognizable at first intuitive sight.

In the first part of the seminar we examined methods for the quantitative analysis of urban space (in particular street network analysis) and examined in how far these quantities relate to real life phenomena such as the distribution of functions in a city or the movement patterns of urban users. The methods will be tested in small cities of nine to eleven thousand inhabitants (10K cities) which are located in Thuringia. We will visit these cities, collect data, draw maps and analyse these maps regarding multiple aspects.

In the second part of the seminar the knowledge of the first part is used to develop a new analysis method related to the study project “Rural stocks and flows”. The focus thereby lies on concepts for measuring the metabolism of cities.

Course Dates:
10.04.2017, 09:15 – 16:45 pm
18.04.2017, 09:15 – 16:45 pm (Tuesday!)
All other dates starting 13:30 pm 

Module: Urban Planning/Urban Design  2 SWS/ 3 CP 
Leila Javanmardi, Mohamed Elazzazy      

S "Modern...Modernist...Modernism between the East and the West”

Content
This seminar examines how the concepts of the modern urbanism are interpreted differently between countries and gives students’ insight into a variety of urban design, and planning products which formed the basis of the contemporary urban settlements. The seminar combines lectures, readings and student research projects. The seminar examines the modern urbanism starting from the 19th century with main focus on the 20th century urbanism. It aims to explore the meaning and the different interpretations of Modernism, Modernity and Modern urbanism in different contexts. It focuses on the different interpretation of modern urbanism in diverse European Western countries (such as Germany, France, UK, etc....) in contrast with the Eastern countries (in the Middle East, Asia & Africa). It focuses on the modern urbanism from its genesis in Europe and discusses the socio-economic and political aspects that created it forming the basis of the contemporary city. It focuses as well on the process of transfer of these movements from Europe towards the Eastern counties.

Course dates:
12.04.2017, 09:30 – 11:00 am 
19.04.2017, 09:30 – 11:00 am 
10.05.2017, 09:30 – 12:45 am
17.05.2017, 09:30 – 12:45 am
24.05.2017, 09:30 – 11:00 am 
31.05.2017, 09:30 – 11:00 am 
14.06.2017, 09:30 – 12:45 am 
28.06.2017, 09:30 – 12:45 am 
12.07.2017, 09:30 – 12:45 am

Module: Theory of Architecture  2 SWS/ 3 CP 
Prof. Dr. Ines Weizman

S "Bauhaus Walks”

Module: Master´s Thesis  2 SWS/ 3 CP 
PhD Justin Kadi, Prof. IfEU

Master Colloquium EU/AdUrb

Content
The course is the platform for presentation and discussion of the Masters theses. The candidates will present the intermediate results of their work on their individual topics. Suggestions for further action will be made by fellow students and academics attending the colloquium. Admission for the Master examination is required for participation. Performance record (attestation) will be achieved by giving an oral presentation.