Back to the City: Strategies for Informal Urban Interventions

When empty city lots and abandoned buildings are reclaimed for creative architectural or artistic interventions, interesting things happen. These days, as the postindustrial city continues to morph, and often to atrophy, public space has become an increasingly exciting laboratory for interdisciplinary cooperation among artists, architects, urban planners and landscape architects.Featuring essays by experts in architecture, urbanism and contemporary culture, Back to the City documents 28 site-specific installations and temporary interventions in Germany and Australia, which offer interesting prospects for the revitalization of empty land, neatly demonstrating the great potential of provisional usage of urban spaces. All projects date from 2002 to 2008, as curated by architect and urban planner Steffen Lehmann, Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, UNESCO Professor for Sustainable Urban Development and the founding director of s_Lab Space Laboratory for Architectural Research and Design.