Collage von Dieter Urbach, "Großhügelhaus", 1971, Berlinische Gallerie

Rethinking classics

Analyse, understand and improve the big ideas of urban design

On paper, it all seemed perfect – new, creative ideas that were promising better living conditions accessible to the many living in a city. But relatively quickly upon the construction, most of them didn’t completely fulfil the promise. Some of them even were a total disaster. Where and why did it all go wrong? In this seminar, we will look at the now classic urban design projects around the world in order to understand and outline their trajectories from a brilliant idea to a not-so-successful housing projects. This will help us to understand the basic principles of these projects and implement them in the context of a contemporary urban setting.

The first part of the seminar focuses on urban design projects from the past (a theoretical and analytical part), and the second part will explore a possible future of these built projects (a creative part).

After the completion of the course, you will learn how to work analytically with references and how to implement the basic principles into your own work. Or to paraphrase the words of Isaac Newton: if you want to see the future, you need to climb on the shoulders of Giants.

Final works