THE LAND USE CONFLICT

As a contribution to the 20th Bundestag elections, the Architecture Section of the Akademie der Künste invited politicians to two urban-development policy discussions held online. The first discussion, which took place on 19 August 2021, was on the topic “Land, a limited resource”.1 Bernhard Daldrup (SPD, Social Democrats), Christian Kühn (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Green Party), Caren Lay (Die Linke, Left Party), and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP, Liberals) took part. No one from the CDU/CSU was able to attend. With all participants aware that the current land consumption in Germany of 56 hectares per day must not be allowed to continue, surprisingly, by the end of the discussion, a cross-party consensus was reached on what was needed:

•Coordinated and integrated regional planning across local authorities to effectively manage land consumption.

•Formation of suburban hubs to improve the public transport network.

•Building only on already sealed land; alternatively, the use of land certificates or exchange systems.

•Unsealing of downtown areas (e.g. through modification/replacement of car parks, creation of new green spaces).

•Densification of the existing fabric, including taller buildings.

•Large-scale planning of inner-city brownfields, former industrial areas, and railway land.

•Intensification of the local public transport network.

•Creation of a functional/social mix in residential areas.

•Short distances between residential areas.

The topic of the construction of single-family houses, controversially discussed in the media in the run up to the elections, was only briefly addressed during the Akademie der Künste debate. The following article thus fills this gap.

1 The discussion was recorded and is accessible online: https://www.adk.de/en/programme/?we_object

ID=62724. The second conversation of 30 August 2021, on the subject of “Design the metropolis sustainably!”, is also online: https://www.adk.de/en/programme/?we_ objectID=62728

LIVING SUSTAINABLY DESPITE CULTURAL IDEALS

Wilfried Wang

Map of Suburban Areas, Berlin-Brandenburg, 2021 (areas with single-family houses in pink)

OR THE DECISIVE BATTLE FOR THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE

“Whoever has no house now, will not build one anymore.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Autumn day”,1 Paris 1902

FROM INDIVIDUAL DREAM TO COLLECTIVE TRAUMA

Historically rooted and geographically widespread cultural ideals such as the desire to own one’s home, often conflated with the idea of the free-standing, single-family2 house, will continue to be pursued by large sections of the world’s population over the coming decades.

In Germany, two-thirds of the population dream of living in a free-standing, single-family house. Just over one-third of the German population currently live this way; according to statistics, that is 28.67 million people (34.4 per cent).3 If the surveys are to be believed, then there are another 25 million Germans who would like to live in this way. Of the total 19 million existing residential buildings in Germany, 16 million are single-family houses (83 per cent),4 on average these are occupied by 1.79 people, just under half of their occupant capacity (figures from 2021; assuming four persons per household, in purely mathematical terms, 32 million additional people could be accommodated in these existing houses).

Were all of those who wish to be granted permission to purchase the land for a new-build – with a useable floor area of 150 square metres, suitable for four people, on a plot of 500 square metres plus an access road, then an area of about 3,750 square kilometres would be required. So far, the daily land consumption (for commerce, settlement, traffic, etc.) is 56 hectares (204 square kilometres per year),5 of which, according to the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 52 hectares per day are allocated to settlement and traffic areas (about 190 square kilometres per year).6 In 2020, about one-third of this area was occupied by the construction of 107,747 new detached and semi-detached houses, a total of about 64 square kilometres. Thus, were the same number of single-family houses to be built over the next eight years as have been built in recent years (which is around 90,000) then the total area of land consumed would be equivalent to the built-up part of Berlin (489 square kilometres), while only 2.88 of the potential 25 million people would have realised their dream.

What are the arguments against this desire for single-family house ownership?7 The constant consumption of land? The progressive destruction of the soil (whether arable, forest, or fallow land)? The increase in average commuting distances (68.4 per cent of the working population in Germany commute to work in their own vehicles8)? The increasing demand for energy (mobility, spatial comfort)? Isn’t living on the periphery actually the ideal answer to the current coronavirus pandemic (looking at the maps of the respective case numbers, it was primarily the “rural” regions that showed higher incidences of infection during the pandemic)? In general: isn’t the cultural ideal of living in a single-family house timeless?

The real challenge of sustainability for society and politics, however, is not only to reduce the ecological footprint of current pollutant emissions. Equally, it must be recognised how the cultural footprint has left its mark on the environment through the depth of rootedness and breadth of spread of a collective desire, and then this must also be revised.9 Thus, the extent of the cultural-political work of enlightenment that still lies ahead becomes clearer in terms of questioning the raison d’être of the current use of the single-family house. However, who will take on this work of enlightenment? The universities? The professions? The politicians?

The outcry that has been echoing throughout the Federal Republic since January 2021 after media reports about the ban on building single-family houses in Hamburg-Nord, for which Green Party politician Michael Werner-Boelz is responsible, marks the beginning of the culture war over the single-family house. Yet, this discussion is only representative of all other inadequate, unsustainable ways of life, whether international holidays, meat consumption, or planned obsolescence of electronic devices through constant updating of operating systems.

THE IDEAL OF COMFORTABLE INDEPENDENCE WITHOUT ANNOYING THE NEIGHBOURS

How one lives and how one becomes accustomed to ways of living are determined by acquired conceptions and ideals. In the case of the single-family house, its users believe that they will enjoy security, freedom, and independence, a closeness to nature, and tranquillity. Holding the deeds to one’s own single-family house is proof of one’s personal social success; the house represents the owner – one has made it to the top of the tree. One’s children can play unperturbed in the garden and grow up healthy and vice-free. The adults want to be able to party and barbecue at leisure too without complaints from the neighbours. Even of the younger people in Germany – “Generation Z” (in the Interhyp AG study, this age group was limited to 18–25-year-olds) – only 18 per cent want to live in a big city.10

The detached single-family house is the ultimate goal for many people, because it is associated with a sense of freedom, independence, and self-realisation. In this sense, the human strife for self-determination has given rise to all developments in civilisation over thousands of years. Buildings form part of this strife. They have enabled people to live in all regions of the world by providing shelter during climatically inhospitable seasons: my house, my world. This is how individual detached, single-family houses came into being at one end of the scale, as well as housing estates at the other end of the scale. Beyond the structural shell, heating or air-conditioning systems enable people in drastically inhospitable regions to be able to live there at all. This process of autonomisation of all areas of human life from all natural environmental conditions, achieved especially in extreme climate zones, demanded high material and energy input over a period of thousands of years.

While part of this differentiated development has been accomplished since the First World War, the development of suburban settlement structures (the so-called suburban sprawl) has progressed intensively all over the world since the Second World War. In addition to detached single-family houses, this type of settlement structure is made up of buildings for spatially separated functions such as production, retail, education, and leisure as well as the numerous infrastructural elements such as public transport, roads, and media (energy, sanitation, communications, etc.). In other words, the same elements that exist in cities – albeit in a concentrated form – are more scattered in suburbia, interspersed with separating greenery in the shape of barely recognisable vestiges of the nature-mimetic – the so-called “English landscape garden”.

The cultural-historical canonisation of this life dream was affected with the help of literature, painting, and architecture. For example, the writings of Alvise Cornaro, the frescoes of Paolo Veronese, and Andrea Palladio’s ideal of the villa in a rural setting defined the fundamental values, pictorial stylisation, and structural representation that was to become valid for centuries.11 However, whereas Palladio’s villas remained agriculturally oriented, the subsequent English Palladian country houses saw themselves less as production sites and more as refuges set in completely artificial but natural-looking varied landscapes that, interspersed with small classical temples and gothic-style pavilions and pagodas in the pseudo-Chinese style, had the contemplation of the arts as

their focus. The Palladian English villas found their imitators in the European colonies. Stylistically modified, but identical in terms of settlement type, the country houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others, replaced the classicist models for millions of architecture students. Looking at the magazines on sale at any German railway station news stand today, there are dozens upon dozens of lavishly illustrated monthly magazines fixated on housebuilding, with something for everyone: for the thrifty customer (Hausbau); those who strive for social recognition (Architectural Digest); for the ecologically aware (holz- und ökohäuser); and for the solid housebuilding contractor market (HAUSBAUHELDEN). The single-family house with a garage and two cars symbolises modern consumer society. The essence of this way of life is the linear economy: from resource extraction to production, advertising, distribution, purchase, and, finally, landfill disposal – from the ground back into the ground. The way the single-family house, including an SUV, is used currently, comes top of the list of the demonstrative consumption of the supposedly leisured classes – the conspicuous consumption of the capitalist-colonialist exploitative society – so sharply criticised by Thorstein Veblen. The dominant form of use for the single-family house equals the black-hole ideal of the Western lifestyle: it can never be big enough to fulfil its purpose as a Map of Suburban Areas, Cologne-Bonn, 2021 museum-like temporary waste site for personal souvenirs, the sports trophies of children who have long since moved out, motheaten clothes; as an archive for virgin gardening tools, food long past its due date, the no longer playable music media, and unread books. For most of its existence, most rooms in the single-family house are empty – in Germany, 16 million times over. Linear consumer culture is the decaying model of Western civilisation; it is on the verge of extinction, and with this extinction, the single-family house as a purely representative residential property is also becoming a sociocultural dinosaur. Many people are aware that effective climate protection requires every individual to make lifestyle changes. In the case of single-family houses, too, there will be both restrictions on the future construction of this type of dwelling and changes in its use. Existing single-family houses will have to become more productive in the future; they could thus certainly make decisive contributions to energy generation (electrical and energy for heating) and food production (fruits and vegetables). With the installation of solar and photovoltaic systems on

the roofs of existing residential and single-family houses, the electricity and heating requirements of private households could be serviced to a considerable extent. In addition, the existing 16 million single-family homes in Germany could provide living spaces for some of the 25 million residents who are interested in living in single-family homes.

But, let us not kid ourselves, a future ban on single-family house construction will trigger a last-minute panic, just as it has in other areas, once one suspects it will be banned at some point, such as the purchase of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs). In June 2021, these vehicles accounted for 23.8 per cent of all new German car registrations (2016: 12.7 per cent).12 No trace of Rilke’s gloom here: if you don’t have an SUV now, you can still get one – but you’d best hurry up.

On the subject of singlefamily houses, the respective positions – not only in Germany – are currently still irreconcilable. On the one hand, living in a single-family house is the epitome of individualism, of self-interest; on the other hand, parents bear a responsibility for the entire family. Who can blame the parents for striving to improve the health of their family thanks to a “closeness to nature” lifestyle, safe distance from social ills and urban vices? What parents honestly don’t care if their own children are educated alongside a majority of pupils with a migrant background?

Speaking of migrants: The percentage of people living in Germany with a migrant background is 26.7 per cent.13 In 2018, the proportion of people with a migrant background in Germany’s inner cities was 59.5 per cent, while in the “rural” regions it was 12.7 per cent.14 It is the process of suburbanisation that has led to this differentiated development over the past decades. Since the 1950s, this collective movement has been referred to as white flight, especially in North America. The demand by German politicians that migrants should double their efforts at integrating themselves with the majority society (a demand already fulfilled in the inner cities, where migrants often make up the majority) opens up two options: the first, according to which people with a migrant background also move to the suburbs until the proportion has grown to 26.7 per cent;15 and the second, that people without a migrant background return to the inner cities, ideally, of course, without causing gentrification. But let us not fool ourselves, neither one nor the other option will take place; both processes of the heterogenisation of the culture in the inner cities and the homogenisation of the sub-

urban periphery will continue, because there will still not be a functioning sense of common interest in all areas of public life – from schools to public spaces. MYTHS: RURAL AREAS AND THE EUROPEAN CITY For decades, settlement development has either been glossed over or played down by politicians and administrators in a very revealing way. For example, although the “Leipzig Charter for a Sustainable European City”16 has officially been in force in Germany since 2007, as a result of which individual socially deprived neighbourhoods have experienced minor improvements (this charter was renewed again in 2020),17 the overarching goal of integrated urban and regional planning has unfortunately not actually begun in any German city. The “European” city has remained a cliché. The only results were large groups of monofunctional, tranquilising, rectangular boxes. In this context, the rural area is often understood as the counterpart to the European city: actually, the rural area comprises sparsely populated areas dominated by forestry and agricultural use, but in common parlance, suburban sprawl is also subsumed under it. The European city, on the other hand, is socially and functionally mixed and densely populated, with streets and squares clearly defined by perimeter blocks. But what about the setMap of Suburban Areas, Hamburg, 2021 tlement structure between rural areas and the “European city”? Suburban settlement structures are characterised predominantly by residential use in detached, semi-detached, or single-family houses. If we look at contemporary lifestyles now, it is not enough to analyse only these three settlement types. Instead, we must also look at those overarching coherent spaces in which a large proportion of people in Germany live – that is in the metropolitan regions: for example, Berlin-Brandenburg, Hamburg, Cologne-Bonn, RhineMain, and Munich. These regions are economic magnets that attract more people to the available residential accommodation within the metropolitan city limits than there is housing stock to accommodate them. Thus, people often live in the suburban sprawl and commute to work in the city. The extent of metropolitan regions can be mapped based on commuting patterns, and by looking at the collective public-regional transport networks.18 The cities, as proudly introverted territorial authorities, look idly on as the surrounding countryside becomes overdeveloped. None of this is new, nor is

the dominant settlement pattern generated by this commuter lifestyle. It is therefore all the more necessary that this settlement pattern is finally consciously perceived, because the European city is only a tiny fragment of the entire settlement unit of the metropolitan region. The latter consists largely of peripheral suburban developments around older towns and villages.

In general, the share of the “European” city in relation to the total area of the respective metropolitan region in the German examples is about 1 per cent: the densified part of Berlin (274 square kilometres) takes up 0.89 per cent in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region (30,546 square kilometres). In the Munich metropolitan region, the share of the dense inner city is 0.44 per cent of the region’s total area (113 square kilometres out of a total 25,548). In the metropolitan regions around Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, and Cologne, the inner-city area shares are 0.32, 0.42, and 1.28 per cent respectively. The remaining 99 per cent of area space is filled by mobility networks, logistics, and shopping centres, villages and small towns transformed into dormitories, suburban sprawl, and areas for the agro-pharmaceutical food industry, formerly known as agriculture.19 The “European city” is a gem that will now not be able to counter the effects of rapidly growing online trade and the resultant death of retail or the continuing popularity of the home-office mode of working, even after the pandemic. The gem of the city has increasingly been losing its significance for locals and has been degenerating into a caricature of itself thanks to over-tourism.

Map of Suburban Areas, Munich, 2021

THE SUBURBAN REALITY

The degree of suburbanisation can be deduced from the ratio of the number of inner-city residents to the total population of the metropolitan area: in Berlin-Brandenburg, 35.78 per cent of people currently live in Berlin’s densely populated inner city; in Hamburg, 34.94 per cent of people live there, so almost as many. By contrast, only 19.16 per cent of the regional population lives in Cologne’s inner city; only 6.68 per cent of the total population of the Rhine-Main area lives in Frankfurt am Main.20 According to a study by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), 84 per cent of the population in Germany lives outside the inner-city centres.21 This proportion, therefore, reflects the reality of settlements rather than any notions of dense, urban life in the sense of the classic “European” city.

It is unlikely that the continued suburbanisation of rural areas will be slowed down by future German governments. The Federal Environment Ministry’s 2016 “Integrated Environmental Programme 2030” envisaged a daily land consumption of 20 hectares for 2030, but this will not be achievable due to the implicit embrace by politics and economics of the multiplier effect of single-family house production. Besides, the conservative parties (CDU/CSU), whose members often hold the decisive building offices in the “rural” areas, the financial, automobile, construction, and consumer goods industries, have a vested interest in the continuation of suburbanisation.

NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES

Much of what has been stated here has been common knowledge for decades. Various federal governments and their subordinate federal agencies have themselves called for far-reaching consequences, most recently the Federal Environment Agency;22 but unfortunately, even the Green Party has rejected the demand to abolish the commuter subsidy. À la carte climate protection is pointless because everything is interconnected. New technologies will only save a fraction of the current “necessary” emissions. As indicated, existing single-family houses could make a major contribution to climate protection and social harmony. But what course of action would have to be pursued by the federal government for the country to reach the target of only 20 hectares of land consumption per day from 2030 onwards? What legal instruments would have to be created by the federal government to enforce this limit in all federal states, in all district governments, in all cities, councils, and villages? Proportionally for Bavaria, for example, this would mean a daily land consumption of 3.9 hectares (39,000 square metres). This will not make only Bavarian politicians choke on their beer. The fight over the principle of subsidiarity is thus pre-programmed: last-minute panic in the building councillors’ offices will ensue.

Future regional and urban planning and design, however, should not be limited to the setting of quantifiable ceilings, but be concerned with long-term, concrete, and integrated climatefriendly design, not abstract diagrams, of metropolises and rural areas.23

The global community has already missed the Paris Climate Agreement target of a maximum average temperature increase of 1.5 degrees centigrade. Now the question is whether the world will even care if the rise reaches 2.7 degrees, or more, by the end of the century. The enlightenment project has failed: Modernity has reduced itself to absurdity. The West lacks any moral authority. But, ironically, the single-family house as a symbol of selfdetermination, a technically equipped, self-sufficient ark of the bourgeoisie, could even experience a renaissance. And so, some think that there is still plenty of time before real changes need to be made. Let China, the US, Russia, and the Indian subcontinent first reduce their CO2 emissions, and then perhaps Germany and its citizens can think about their reduction measures, including land consumption. After all, Germans have worked hard for their fun. Regardless whether climate change is irreversible or not, a few more homes on the edges of suburbia, a few more SUVs, a few more kilometres of motorway will not make a difference. No one will even notice.

“… for there is not one part that does not have you in sight. You have to change your life.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic torso of Apollo”,24 Paris, 1908

1 Rainer Maria Rilke, “Herbsttag” (Autumn day), written in Paris in 1902, in R. M. Rilke, Das Buch der Bilder (Berlin: Axel Juncker Verlag, 1902): “Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.” Translated by the author. 2 Julia Meyer, editorial office, Interhyp, “Wohntraumstudie 2021” (Dream home study, 2021), Munich, https:// www.presseportal.de/pm/12620/4951167#gallery-2 3 Statista Research Department, “Bevölkerung in

Deutschland nach Wohnisituation von 2017 bis 2021” (Population in Germany by housing situation from 2017 to 2021), https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/ 171237/umfrage/wohnsituation-der-bevoelkerung/ 4 Statista Research Department, “Statistiken zum Thema

Wohnen” (Housing statistics, 24 Sept. 2020), https:// de.statista.com/themen/51/wohnen/#dossierKeyfigures 5 Reply by the Federal Government of Germany, 19th Legislature, to a minor enquiry by the Green Party, Dec. 2020, source no longer in the public domain, see Johanna

Michel, “Flächenverbrauch müsste fast um die Hälfte reduziert werden” (Land consumption would have to be reduced by almost half, 9 Feb. 2021), https://www. agrarheute.com/politik/flaechenverbrauch-muesstefast-um-haelfte-reduziert-578080 6 Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), “Flächenverbrauch müsste fast um die Hälfte reduziert werden” (Land consumption would have to be reduced by almost half), https:// www.bmu.de/themen/nachhaltigkeit-digitalisierung/ nachhaltigkeit/strategie-und-umsetzung/flaechen verbrauch-worum-geht-es 7 BMU, ibid., translated by the author: “Consequences of land consumption: Land consumption often destroys valuable (arable) soils. Rural areas are being overdeveloped. Undissected landscape areas, important for our flora and fauna, are lost. Future development opportunities or development needs for which these areas are required are often thoughtlessly abandoned. One only has to think of measures that might be necessary to adapt to climate change, such as flood protection. Another problem is that increasing urban sprawl reduces the use of infrastructure. These consequences are exacerbated when the population shrinks due to demographic change.

“Urban sprawl is therefore also highly questionable from an economic and social point of view: If the density of settlement decreases, the expenditure per inhabitant increases to maintain the technical infrastructure such as supply lines, sewage systems, traffic routes, and so on. The lower the user density, the less profitable public transport becomes. The result: the supply shrinks. This increases the dependence on private motorised transport, which in turn leads to calls for even more (relief/ bypass) roads – and thus land consumption – and much more. Similar consequences also affect social infrastructures such as kindergartens, schools, and hospitals.

“Not to be forgotten are general environmental burdens such as noise, air pollution, loss of biodiversity, and so on. They increase when settlement areas and traffic areas increase.” 8 Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), “Employment – Commuters”, https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/ Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetigkeit/Tabellen/pendler1.html 9 Wilfried Wang, “Sustainability is a Cultural Problem”,

Harvard Design Magazine, no. 18 (Spring/Summer 2003), pp. 1–3. 10 Poll by the Rheingold Institute carried out for the Interhyp AG, Wohntraumstudie 2021 (Interhyp Dream home study 2021, 24 June 2021), https://www.interhyp.de/ ueber-interhyp/presse/interhyp-wohntraumstudie-2021wunsch-nach-eigentum-steigt-erneut.html 11 Reinhard Bentmann and Michael Müller, Die Villa als

Herrschaftsarchitektur: Versuch einer kunst- und sozialgeschichtlichen Analyse (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970). 12 Mathias Brandt for Statista, “SUV-Anteil steigt 2021 wieder” (SUV share rises again in 2021, 12 July 2021), https://de.statista.com/infografik/19572/anzahl-derneuzulassungen-von-suv-in-deutschland/ 13 Statista, “Bevölkerung – Migration und Integration“ (Population – Migration and Integration), https://www. destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/ Population/Migration-Integration/_node.html;jsessionid =6BE41F3EFAB9B59BDF545D3F5ACD60B7.live742 14 Federal Agency for Civic Education, “Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund” (Population with a migration background, 1 Nov. 2021), https://www.bpb.de/nach schlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-indeutschland/61646/migrationshintergrund-i 15 For this to happen, the granting of loans would need to become blind to applicants’ migrant status, see Yasemin von Haack, Safaa Mohajeri, and Julia Große-Heitmeyer, “Diskriminierung von Migranten beim Wohneigentumserwerb” (Discrimination against migrants when buying their own home), Intergration and Migration in Deutschland (15 Nov. 2012), Migazin, https://www.migazin.de/ 2012/11/15/diskriminierung-von-migranten-beimwohneigentumserwerb/ 16 Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, “LEIPZIG CHARTA zur nachhaltigen europäischen Stadt” (LEIPZIG CHARTER for a sustainable European city, 25 May 2007), https://www.bmu.de/ fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Nationale_ Stadtentwicklung/leipzig_charta_de_bf.pdf 17 Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community, “Die Neue Leipzig-Charta”, 8 (The New Leipzig Charter, no. 8, 3 Dec. 2020), https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/veroeffentlichungen/2020/eu-rp/ gemeinsame-erklaerungen/neue-leipzig-charta-2020. pdf;jsessionid=7B9DC8B03DCD6B7F0914FB09518F47 A0.1_cid287?__blob=publicationFile&v=6 18 See the extensive research by Professor Alain Thierstein at the Institute for Urban Development, Department of architecture, Munich University of Technology (TUM) on the metropolitan region of Munich, “WAM – Wohnen, Arbeiten, Mobilität” (WAM – living, working, mobility, 3 Feb. 2016), https://www.ar.tum.de/fileadmin/w00bfl/re/ Aktuelles/WAM_Schlusspraesentation_deutsch.pdf 19 Hoidn Wang Partner, Mapping of Suburban Settlements:

Berlin-Brandenburg, Hamburg, Cologne, Rhine-Main,

Munich (Berlin, 2020). The analysis defines suburban settlements solely by means of single-family houses: free-standing, semi-detached, terraced, and courtyard; multistorey apartment buildings are not included. See Wilfried Wang, “Die suburbane Wirklichkeit” (The suburban reality), Marlowes online magazine (24 Nov. 2020), https://www.marlowes.de/die-suburbane-wirklichkeit/ 20 For the calculation of these ratios, the respective urban quarters with perimeter-block development were used. 21 Federal Institute for Research and Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development in the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, “Wandel demografischer Strukturen in deutschen Großstädten” (Change in demographic structures in large German cities),

BBSR-Analysen KOMPAKT, no. 04 (2016), https://www. bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/veroeffentlichungen/analysenkompakt/2016/ak-04-2016-dl.pdf?__blob=publication File&v=2 22 Federal Environment Agency, “Klimaschutz im Verkehr” (Climate protection in traffic), https://www.umwelt bundesamt.de/themen/verkehr-laerm/klimaschutzim-verkehr#undefined 23 A proposal for the future of the Berlin-Brandenburg region was submitted by Hoidn Wang Partner for the All-Innovate Ideas (AIV) Competition 2020; see also Hoidn Wang Partner, 21BB Model Region Berlin Brandenburg (Zurich: Park Books, 2020); http://www.hoidnwang.de/04projekte_87_de.html 24 Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaïscher Torso Apollos” (Archaic torso of Apollo), Paris 1908, in R. M. Rilke, Das Buch der Bilder (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1913): “... denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.” Translated by the author.

WILFRIED WANG (with Barbara Hoidn) is a founding member of the architecture firm Hoidn Wang Partner, Berlin. Born in Hamburg, he studied architecture in London. In addition to teaching assignments at the Polytechnic of North London; Bartlett School, Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD); ETH Zurich; University of Texas, Austin; and ETSAUN Pamplona/Madrid, he is editor and author of publications on architecture, and curator of architectural exhibitions. Wang is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, the Comité International des Critiques d’Architecture, the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Honorary Doctor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and honorary member of the Ordem dos Arquitectos, Portugal.

KLEINSTADT – SMALL TOWN

A series by Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler

Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler visited small towns in Germany over a period of three years and discovered a generation asking themselves: do we go, or do we stay?

“We wanted to visit towns that are not in any travel guide and that are too far from the motorway for people to pass through in transit. We call them overlooked or forgotten towns. In these small towns, many shops in the centre are empty, schools are having to close because there are no longer enough children, and the buses run less and less frequently […]. We wondered how people live in these small towns. And what is the atmosphere like there? How do things look?”

Zeit-Magazin, 23 October 2018 UTE MAHLER (born in Berka, Thuringia in 1949) and WERNER MAHLER (born in Bossdorf, Saxony-Anhalt in 1950) were among the style-defining photographers of the eastern part of the country during the East German era. As outstanding exponents of their discipline, their humanistic view of the world has found expression in various in-depth projects. After reunification, they co-founded the OSTKREUZ – photographers’ agency and the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. In addition to teaching, the couple have been devoting themselves to freelance projects since 2010. In 2019, they were awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal by the German Photographic Academy for their photographic work. “Kleinstadt” is their fourth long-term project together; a book of the same name was published by Hartmann Books in 2018.