Contact
Print version
      
|
Excursion to the urban space of Zagreb based on images of Dortmund
A project by stadtraum.org
New Relations: periphery and centre
Structures and institutions of globalized capital cross over and brand European cities from the East to the West. Specific local qualities have been slurred within the international competition of the cities. Time economies are synchronized in the spaces, which are geographically scattered far from each other with comparable economic development. They fork between bordering city regions into stagnancy and hyperactive bustle.
The downtowns act as business cards of the cities, offering for sale touristy marketable uniqueness, which is spatially concentrated. A fraying, multicentral periphery arranges itself around this area and reflects uncritically the economic and social transition as well as migration processes beneath limits of attentiveness of the municipal arrangement intentions.
Spaces of permanent change
The project "Discovering Zagreb (via Dortmund)" focuses its interest on the outskirts and their everyday life reality. In the areas where the functional and spatial demerger replaces the urban density and where the historic urban spaces and images are no longer at one’s disposal as markers and identifiers, the orientation by means of an urban vocabulary takes place, which could be referred to as a mapping of quotidian. In the spaces of permanent change the official and informal indications can abruptly disappear as well as complete large-scaled architectural structures. At first, sudden relocation of a production zone within this area marks a terrain of indefiniteness. A few weeks later a new megastore is brought up next door. The everyday usage of those spatially and temporally borderless zones should be traced, which is visually expressed in the subtle details of their shape.
"All elements, regardless to their origin can become subject of new relations."1
Based on the question how something is being made, the view of interested observer reveals subtle details, which are results of habitual acts and might lead from Zagreb to Dortmund like traces of urban practice. How do you park your car? Which colours are being used for painting of the houses? How the bus stop can be recognised? How does a playground look like, how do the barrier grids or a garden fence look like, how the post boxes, street marking, park benches, skateboard ramps, lamp posts and so on look like? How and in what manner are they being used within their framework of action, which is situated beyond their direct functionality?
During an excursion to Zagreb we are going to observe and to document the urban everyday life experience in Zagreb with a tourist view skilled on the knowledge about Dortmund and the Ruhr Region. A ‘mind map’ of the city of Zagreb will be presented as guided tour through Zagreb in Dortmund. This ‘mind map’ will be created by means of markers, which have been researched in Zagreb and then found again in Dortmund. Descriptions of places and situations will be developed on the basis of material investigated in Zagreb and then assigned to Dortmund. The excursion will be communicated as a tourist guided tour through Zagreb and provided in German and Croatian language.2
Subsequent, a city guide will be published, which will combine urban images of Zagreb and Dortmund, will include descriptions in German and Croatian and will also present and document the excursion for an individual comprehension.
1
2
