Stadt und Landschaft - Perspectives of the Cultural Sciences. A Contribution to the Ladenburger Kolleg Mitten am Rand: Zwischenstadt Towards the Qualification of the Urbanised Landscape

Zwischenstadt is a term coined in 1997 by Thomas Sieverts for areas showing characteristic features of urban developments and (rural) landscapes at the same time: They are composed of industrial zones, shopping centres, traffic infrastructures, gardens, fields and settlements of all kind. These areas are not to be deciphered as cities nor as landscapes in a traditional sense. The development of these areas challenges older concepts of the city and of urbanity as well as common concepts of the (cultural) landscape. From the point of view of Cultural Studies the project City and Landscape deals with the role of these concepts in the development and planning of the Zwischenstadt today. The first part of the project raises the question of how traditional and more recent concepts of landscape are able to contribute to the qualification of the urbanised landscape. The importance of places, of memory and (constructions of) identity for the heterogeneous and mobile inhabitants of these new landscapes is being analysed. Another focus is the design of an aesthetics of landscape for the Zwischenstadt. The second part of the project deals with concepts of the city and of urbanity in relation to the aesthetic, social, political and spatial constitution of the Zwischenstadt. The leading images of cities in the discourses of city planning and architectural theory are analysed with regard to their effects for planning processes.