Institute Institutes - Fakultät für Architektur - TUM

Städtebau und Regionalplanung
Urban Design and Regional Planning
The focus of research and teaching are urban design and the concept of an architectural
urbanism.
The architecture of the city is a cultural expression of the society of its time. Cities
are subject to global social and economic mechanisms, while at the same
time they have their particular local character and distinctiveness as a function
of specific policies, history and landscape. New structures of communication
and mobility, private and public, cultural representation and everyday life produce
new spatial forms: urban landscapes, dispersed urban agglomerations,
growing and shrinking cities, towns of the wealthy, ‘self-made cities’ of the poor.
This is compared to general societal goals, which are beholden to urban planning:
participation in society, health and quality of life for all, sustainable
resource conservation, cultural and environmental quality. There are two other
conflicting social spheres the city must accommodate today: the individual self
as opposed to the solidarity of the community. The former make their home in
the world, embedded in place, self-assurance, difference to others, and in diversity
of lifestyles. The latter is identified with the specifically political importance
of spaces of solidarity and tolerance in society that make up the actual culture
of the urban.
The aim of Architectural Urbanism is to address the complexity of urban life and
meet these conflicting goals. Current standard practice succeeds in doing this
only inadequately: Cities continue to develop as urban agglomerations of isolated
social and economic special interests, and as additions along technical
and functional lines, sites are optimised within their own specific logic. Spatial
conflicts are defused via distance, borders are hard and they isolate instead of
connect. As a result problems increase. By contrast, Architectural Urbanism
aims at the spatial integration of interests. Architecture does not serve mere
individual interests, functions, goals in sequence. Rather, Architecture is a cultural
technique: the spatial articulation of aesthetic expression and functional
needs combined. It includes specific local culture and atmosphere, creating cultural
added value. It has a repertoire of resources for complex spatial integration,
it has structural and conceptual power (also in the figurative sense) and is
connected to social situations via its performative qualities. Scale is irrelevant;
the city is architecture. Designing its architecture provides the city with form,
expression, cultural and aesthetic qualities.
166 Athen 2008, Markus Lanz
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www.stb.ar.tum.de
Leitung Professor
Prof. Sophie Wolfrum
Sekretariat Office management
Dr. Evelyn Wegner, Ingrid Wolfrath
Wiss. Mitarbeiter Research associates
Merle Bald, Nikolai Frhr. v. Brandis, Francesca
Fornasier, Marc Hofmann, Hanne Rung,
Susanne Schaubeck, Heiner Stengel, Max Ott
Multiple City
Der Begriff benennt aktuelle weltweite urbanistische
Entwicklungen im Spiegel zentraler Stadtkonzepte
der letzten 100 Jahre. Historische und
gegenwärtige städtebauliche Leitideen werden in
ihre Verflechtung thematisiert.
Urban Image thematisiert das Verhältnis von Bild
und Stadtraum.
Multiple City
The semester designates current global urban development
as reflected in central urban concepts
of the past 100 years. Historical and contemporary
central themes of urban design are addressed
in their interrelation. Urban Image addresses the
relationship between image and urban space.