Community College EXCURSION
Meeting point: Tram station Großjedlersdorf (Line 31 or 30), in front of the School Brünner Straße 139.
At the beginning of the 1950ies architect Franz Schuster planned and built a housing area between Siemensstraße, Wankeläckergasse, Justgasse and Ruthnergasse in 21. Viennese district Floridsdorf. Probably – among other reasons – its simplicity is accountable for the area not being well known. Though the settlement shows some remarkable qualities: unpretentious architecture realized unagitated, usable courts in proverbial human scale, walkways separated from motor traffic leading through the whole neighbourhood. Whoever asks how “simply building” can work out should visit the site at least once. But also the neighbouring residential buildings dating from the 1960ies, 70ies and 80ies offer a fascinating comparison and the recognition that housing development has taken another direction – towards a space where private consumption, car traffic and balconies got more important than common use of public space.
The neighbourhood of Franz Schuster could as a housing model be a counterpart to a lively urban Brünner Straße. It could be the retreat for a community contributing to urban diversity, if there was something like urban diversity on Brünner Straße.
Walking together we will explore if and how both could fit together and if the seeming contradiction between one and the other can be solved.
Please register: community.college@kunsthallewien.at
Ursula Hofbauer, architect and THINGeneer, Vienna-based, lives in the 21st district and the 21st century. Has been working in and with public space since 1999, amongst others: “Strange Views” (1999), exhibition project in the Vienna Prater with lettering on sidewalks, “Permanent Breakfast” (1999–2005), the everlasting breakfast in public space and “Jane’s Walks” (2016 und 2017) along Brünner Straße in Vienna. Dedicated to all questions of democratic use, appropriation of public space and resulting designs, specially in urban periphery.
The Community College excursions explore what there is to be collectively learned and unlearned by attentively moving through urban space.