Light Towers and Corner Stones of Urban Life and City Development in Germany

German cities are places, where cultural life has always been important. Theaters, concert halls as well as socio-cultural centers and festivals are light towers and corner stones of urban life and city development. Multifunctional civic halls are essential economic sites of the local, economy. Rooted in a long history fine and performing arts play an important role in the German society. Christian communities built impressive richly decorated churches in cities and villages to praise god and earn a peaceful life after death. Dukes and princesses impressed their large feudal families and visitors by asking architects to build them attractive palaces and country houses surrounded by well-designed gardens. Both the church communities hand the feudal gentry used their premises to decorate and display art by renowned artists of the time. They entertain their communities and large families from across Europe with music and theater performances in court theatres and art collections. Once the feudal times came slowly to an end in the 19th century, local governments in German cities and towns encouraged by wealthy bourgeois families resumed the tradition and built public theaters, concert halls and museums for the evolving civic society. In today\u27s Germany the arts and music and related cultural and creative industries have not lost their importance. They are seen valued as vital pillars of local economic development, education, entertainment and social inclusion, even as gate keepers of democracy. After 1945 local governments, besides reconstructing war-demolished theaters and museums, built multifunctional city halls as venues for public and commercial activities, for conventions, congresses, fairs and even sport activities. Cultural and creative industries have received much local cultural and economic interest. The paper will discuss the importance of culture and culture related buildings for city development and urban life in Germany. It will briefly discuss the implications of the still ongoing pandemic on culture and city life on German cities and towns, and will conclude with some remarks on transferability

Urban challenges and darker sides of smart city development

Introduction: smart cities all over Smart cities, a global crusade The digitalization of the society has become a global phenomenon. New information and communication technologies and the broad application of these technologies are changing industrial production, logistics, private and governmental services all over the world. And they have already changed information and communication modes of citizens. Driven by a few powerful globally active corporations, the new technologies and the multi..

Préambule : La place de la connaissance dans le développement urbain

Introduction La connaissance ne se limite pas à une localisation précise. Partout où les gens vivent, ils connaissent nécessairement ce qui caractérise leur environnement et, plus particulièrement, ses dimensions économiques, pour survivre ou pour faire fortune. Ils saisissent la nécessité de développer des réseaux sociaux pour communiquer et l’importance des valeurs culturelles autour desquelles leur territoire s’est défini au fil des siècles. Ils sont conscients des défis que la nature impo..

The State of Planning and Planning Education in Europe 2015

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Definite Space – Fuzzy Responsibility, Prague, 13-16th July, 2015 Paper presented to Track 11 of the Annual Congress of Planning Education Schools in Prague/Czech Republic, July 2015. An earlier version of this paper has been published in disp : The Planning Review, No. 200 , (1/2015), 86-90.Since planning has become an academic discipline, debates on the role of planning in the postindustrial society and on the right approach to educate and train planners for this society seem to never end. The community of planners across Europe argues constantly that planning (be it urban and regional or spatial or environmental) is always in a crisis and does not receive the required political support from European, national, regional or local governments. The extent to which planning does address social disparities and can contribute to territorial cohesion is a much-discussed theme among planners. There are continuous debates about the right approach to planning education, between architecture, urbanism or geography and planning as an independent discipline. Finally there are ongoing controversies about the role of the European Commission in intervening into local or national urban policies. Addressing these debates, the paper presents the outcome of a survey among planners and practitioners on the occasion of the publication of the 200th issue of the Swiss planning journal: disp: The Planning Review. Randomly selected renowned academic planners and practitioners from 18 countries in Europe have been asked to respond to six questions concerning the state-of-the-art of planning and planning education in 2015. The responses were in English, French, German and Italian the four languages of the only multi-lingual planning journal in Europe. A synthesis of the 34 responses to our questions is given in this paper. 29th Annual AESOP 2015 Congress | July 13–16, 2015 | Prague, Czech Republic 1685.Published Versio