In light of global shifts, in light “of that which is transitory,” social upheavals as manifested by urban development processes have become key challenges of our day.

The symptoms and manifestations of crisis being exhibited by “growth-oriented society” are emerging with increasing clarity across the board and are radically and permanently changing political, social, economic as well as cultural conditions, identities, and the understanding of urban spatial structures that have prevailed up to now.

Such situations of thoroughgoing transition and developmental phases also always generate an enormous potential to re-cultivate that which is temporarily at hand as a qualitative element and structural basis of reality as lived out in everyday life and to embed it as a part of urban strategies.

trans_areale_, a project initiated by Hans Kropshofer and realized in cooperation with architects Daniela Herold and Rolf Touzimsky, takes up the case of the re-urbanization of the grounds of Linz’s former railway freight yard in order to scrutinize the zone of tension and interplay in which highly diverse social structures, spheres of interest and disciplines commingle. On the basis of a multi-year urban R&D project, trans_areale_ looks at the concrete, specific local situation and puts it in an expanded, practice-oriented context of planning and taking action. Processuality, discursive exchange of insights and the development/implementation of integrative utilization models are thus the programmatic intentions of this undertaking.

back