Urban Planning & Street Art: A Creative Intersection

This archive explores the fascinating intersection of urban planning and street art. Discover how city development shapes artistic expression, from the creation of designated mural spaces to the impact of gentrification on street art scenes. We delve into case studies showcasing successful collaborations between urban planners and artists, highlighting how art can revitalize communities and enrich public spaces. Learn how policies, regulations and urban design impact the vibrancy and longevity of urban art. Explore the debates surrounding legality, censorship, and the role of street art as a form of social commentary within the context of urban planning.

Kulturpark Berlin: Re-open an Abandoned Amusement Park

I have a big foible for abandoned amusement parks. One reason - and it doesn’t matter whether the decaying park is located in the US or even in China - is the somehow scary atmosphere of old, often broken attractions, archaic Western buildings and roller coasters. Another reason is, that those abandoned parks, providing never ending impressions, are perfect playgrounds for urban explorers and photographers like me… Kulturpark - A Public Art Project in Berlin In Berlin, a group of cultural developers and activists together with experimental architects from Berlin, researchers from Harvard, and placemakers from the Urban Art Institute plans to re-open the abandoned amusement park Spreepark, located in the sprawling Treptower Park, as a creative camp. The group’s aim is to utilize the process of producing artistic site-specific visions, combined with ideas and memories of publics, to create a grassroots proposal for the park’s future, what sounds like a really great thing for Berlin! ...

Urban Design & Architecture Film Festival

UR{BNE} Films is an urban design and architecture film festival, coming up in Brisbane this May and in London this June! The main intention behind this very interesting project is to showcase films that inform and inspire about urban design, architecture, public spaces and collaborative design process, where communities and city design can be the subject, the background, the actor and lead role in the wide mixture of feature films, documentary and shorts… ...

Urbex: Abandoned Communist UFO

Looks like the Soviets really built an UFO, or at least a building which looks like an RLV, a reusable launch vehicle… According to Timothy Allen the Communist UFO-shaped Buzludzha building (pronounced Buz’ol’ja) in the Balkan Mountains is Bulgaria’s largest ideological monument to Communism which was left to ruin after the revolution in 1989. Nowadays, Buzludzha is still there, icebound, almost forgotten and abandoned, with stories that sound like parts of science fiction classics… ...

NYC Subway - Redbirds Underwater

About 2500 old NYC subway cars, including 1000 so-called Redbirds, have been buried about 80 feet underwater off the US east coast during the last years, as the Spiegel recently published! After running round about 40 years in one of the world’s largest subway networks, this is their last stop… Redbirds - Anti-Graffiti Subway The Redbirds, which are named after their cinnabar red anti-graffiti coat of paint and got famous during the early 1980th, when New York Cities graffiti scene reached the peak, are now helping to create an artificial reef off the coast of Delaware (named Redbirds Reef), what sounds really weird in my ears… ...

Black Hills Not 4 Sale!

The Black Hills (named after their dark appearance from a distance) are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota. In November 2011, Shepard Fairey and his team created a huge mural in Los Angeles to call attention on the many problems of the native’s reservation… We worked together with Shepard Fairey over the next several months to collaborate and bring something to the streets of Los Angeles. With help from Miguel of La Barracuda this 20x60 wall on Melrose Ave at Fairfax was secured. What you see here is the culmination of the tireless efforts of Aaron Huey and Shepard Fairey. ...

Tarzan’s Giant Swimming Pool

In 1929, Johnny Weissmuller, an Austrian-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies, inaugurated the Piscine Molitor (also known as the Piscines Auteuil-Molitor or the Grands établissements balnéaires d’Auteuil) swimming pool in Paris (what is why I call it Tarzan’s swimming pool). As well as the beautiful La Jarry, this wonderful Art Deco building, which hosted the popular introduction of the bikini by Louis Réard in 1946, is planned to be destroyed in 2012! ...

Urbanism & City Culture Trends 2012

Analyzing next trends often is an act of trying to shape the future based on past experiences. For that reason it’s like a big lottery with an intended purpose - But an interesting one! Crowd-funded Urbanism and more… Jeroen Beekmans from The Pop-Up City recently started to publish a series of ten trends for 2012 when it comes to city culture, urban design, marketing and technology. The list includes interesting ideas like Crowd-Funded Urbanism or Urbanism Made To Like and phenomenons like The Revival Of Psychogeography just to name a few. ...

Berlin-Ostkreuz Documentary

Ostkreuz station is was one the tradition-richest train stations in Berlin. With its (rusty) structural steelwork, old brick-built houses, fantastic stairs and other architectural peculiarities Ostkreuz was the mother-of-all old-school interchange stations in the Eastern part! Since winter 2007/08 it’s now under construction - the plan is to build another ugly glass palace station - for what reason it’s just superb for me to get the chance to look back and enjoy the old days by watching the nice Ostkreuz documentary by Laura Geiger and Tom Kretschmer who filmed Ostkreuz’ everyday-life between 2005 and 2007. ...

Reclaim the Streets - Parking Day 2011

Park(ing) Day is an annual, worldwide event that invites citizens everywhere to transform metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good. This year’s Parking Day will take place - as I just read on Urbanshit - tomorrow, September 16th! That means, that you all have to take your camp-chairs, some turf, and probably some barbecue equipment to reclaim the streets and public space by reusing parking bays… Since 2005, Park(ing) Day has grown rapidly. The 2010 event included more than 800 Park installations in more than 180 cities on six continents. From Iran to Madagascar, Venezuela to South Korea, the project continues to expand to urban centers across the globe, and participants have broadened the scope of PARK installations to fulfill a range of unmet social needs. ...

Abandoned Places in Berlin

Berlin is well-known for its abandoned places and for that reason a great playground for urban explorers! My first post about abandoned places in Berlin featured the old Bärenquell brewery in Schöneweide and the old ice fabric in Mitte. Today I’m going to introduce you to some other, decayed buildings in and around Berlin and a nice urban exploration blog… Abandoned Olympic Village Half of the village which was built for the 1936 Olympic Games near Berlin (Elstal, Wustermark) can still be visited (they other half was kept in good condition and is some kind of a museum nowadays) and although the trip takes some time it’s definitely worth to go! ...