The Salons of the Republic: Spaces for Debate 9783868599879, 9783868597097

Table of contents :
CONTENT
FOREWORDS
PREFACE
COMIC
A Day at the Salons of the Republic
BERLIN
The Location
The Salons
The Main Hall
The Roof
Making-Of
FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Making-Of
The Salons
The Formation of Space
The Exploration
The Room Configurations
ESSAYS
The Planned Center of Democracy at Paulskirche in Frankfurt
Representation of Space and Spaces of Representation
Democracy and the Public Sphere amidst Digital Change
Places of Democratic Innovations as Salons of the Republic?
Strengthening Democracy through Interaction
The Room as a Moderator
POSTFACE
REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AUTHORS
ARCHITECTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IMPRINT

Citation preview

Holger Kleine (Ed.)

THE SALONS OF THE REPUBLIC Spaces for Debate

www.hs-rm.de/impact

CONTENT

4

FO R E WOR D S

6

P R E FAC E

What Are the Salons of the Republic and Why Do We Need Them?

COMIC

10  A  Day at the Salons of the Republic Holger Kleine, Johanna Rech

BERLIN

32

The Location

38

The Salons

50

The Main Hall

60

The Roof

68

Making-Of

F R A N K FU RT A M M AIN

82

Making-Of

84

The Salons

100

The Formation of Space

104

The Exploration

110

The Room Configurations

ESSAYS

128

The Planned Center of Democracy at Paulskirche in Frankfurt   Peter Cachola Schmal

134

Representation of Space and Spaces of Representation   Michael May

139

Democracy and the Public Sphere amidst Digital Change   Jonas Aaron Lecointe

146

Places of Democratic Innovations as Salons of the Republic?   Sandra Speer

152

Strengthening Democracy through Interaction   Marion Kamphans

158

The Room as a Moderator 

1 65

Holger Kleine

P O ST FAC E

A Balancing Act between Art Academy and Vocational School  Ralf Kunze 1 69

R EFE R E N C ES

1 69

B I B L IO G R AP H Y

173

AUT H OR S

1 74

A R C H IT ECTS

175

ACK N OW L E D G M E N TS

176

I MP R IN T

FORE WO RDS The student designs presented here were created in design seminars which I taught at the Department of Interior Architecture of Wiesbaden’s RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. In these seminars – most of the participants are in the third semester of their bachelor’s degree program – the didactic objectives are linked to the exploration of the possibilities and requirements of today’s public interiors. Thus, the predecessors of the Salons of the Republic were designs for council chambers, civic halls, or temporary installations. The design for Berlin was developed in winter semester 2018_19, that for Frankfurt at the instigation of Peter Cachola Schmal in winter semester 2020_21. The latter project is our contribution to a current debate that is being conducted among the general public and extends to the highest polit­ ical circles. However, it is not our intention to limit our ideas to these two locations. They serve merely as examples of our conviction that architecture can make an indispensable contribution to cultivating the capacity for dia­ logue and the desire for a vibrant democracy. Currently, salons for Munich and Cologne are the subject of two master’s thesis projects. The fact that we can exhibit our ideas for a program as novel as the Salons of the Republic at Deutsches Architekturmuseum and publish them with ȷovis fills us with pride and gratitude. We owe our thanks to many – not only to those men­ tioned in our acknowledgements. Holger Kleine

4

The interface between universities and society is undergoing a funda­ mental change. Instead of a mere transfer of knowledge, ideas, and tech­ nologies from universities to society, we are moving toward a concept that puts exchange, participation, and cooperation at the center of collaboration. This interaction between university and society forms the core of the work in IMPACT RheinMain, a transfer project at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. We are convinced that only by involving everyone in innovation pro­ cesses – be it companies, politics, and administration as well as civil society – can we meet the requirements of a modern transfer concept. In particular, the far-reaching transformation brought about by digitization underlines that this modern transfer concept must be put into practice at the interfaces of “smart energy,” “smart home”, and “smart mobility.” The values forming the basis of this modern transfer concept are at the heart of the Salons of the Republic and are also described in more detail in the chapter “Places of Democratic Innovation as Salons of the Republic?” (p. 146). In cooperation with Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), the subproject DIALOG IN MUSEUMS provides a platform for exchange with civil society. Since the beginning of the Innovative Hochschule project (funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and Joint Science Conference), we have been experimenting with event formats that create new opportunities for dialogue and discourse – from classic panel discus­ sions to world cafés, fishbowl discussions, and exhibitions or platforms that stimulate debate in the museum. The Salons of the Republic offer an architectural blueprint for this purpose – based on the diagnosed change in debate culture that has come about as part of the digital transformation of the public sphere. We share the concepts of the salons based on the belief that the democratic potential of this change can only be achieved by increas­ ing the resilience of civil society through communication, participation, and cooperation. The Salons of the Republic therefore not only make a valuable contribution to the DIALOG IN MUSEUMS program, but also form a substan­ tial benchmark for our work in the IMPACT RheinMain project. Thomas Heimer und Sandra Speer

Forewords   5

Holger Kleine

PREFAC E

What Are the Salons of the Republic and Why Do We Need Them? The Salons of the Republic are places of communication that transcend milieus. They serve to cultivate debates using the accepted rules of demo­ cracy. They are built public interiors, accessible to all and inviting everyone to participate. They serve as a supplement to the chambers of parliament and other built and virtual spaces, which are essential but not in themselves sufficient for a vibrant democracy that has nowhere yet been comprehen­ sively realized. The fact that a concept such as the Salons of the Republic is in the air is illustrated by the novel dialogue formats that various agents have experi­ mented with and established in recent years: These range from a tête-à-tête in so-called Zuhör-Kiosks (listening kiosks), such as those operated in Ham­ burg or Berlin-Kreuzberg (Reis March 14, 2021), to internet platforms such as “My Country Talks,” which “aims to bring people with opposing political views together from around the world for one-on-one debates in order to overcome social divides and promote dialogue between political camps that have become estranged from one another” (My Country Talks 2021) and the “Conference on the Future of Europe” currently taking shape, the realization of which was included by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her political guidelines for the European Commission in 2019. The aim of this two-year conference is to enable citizens of the European Union to participa­ te on a broader scale than in the past. In this collection of essays, Marion Kamphans interprets the Salons of the Republic as the hub of a “social infrastructure” that requires constant readjustment, as argued by Eric Klinenberg in his 2018 book Palaces for the People, and as a challenging example of a “third place” as defined by Ray Oldenburg: “Third places, according to his [Oldenburg’s] conception, are places and settings that are atmospherically located between the home (“first place”) and the workplace (“second place”)” (p. 154). Their character as thresholds between and overlapping areas of the public and the private is indeed the key reason I call the spaces designed in my design studio “sa­ lons.” Michael May recapitulates how the bourgeois public sphere developed 6

in urban salons and why the term salon is still suitable today as a central concept for the spatial representation of groups that require novel, milieutranscending places in order to make themselves heard. But what is a salon? The mere mention of the word conjures up yearn­ ings; we associate it with esprit and sophistication, flexibility and elegance, tolerance, freedom, and overcoming boundaries, fragrance, and light. In his introduction to Europa – ein Salon? Roberto Simanowski defined it as follows: “It soon becomes clear that not all salons are the same. Location, character, participant structure vary from case to case. In order to distin­ guish the salon as a form of social gathering from other forms of social gatherings such as literary circles, bohemian gatherings, soirées, clubs and societies, or social gatherings in spas and bathing resorts, the following for­ mal criteria can be noted, in line with Peter Seibert’s definition: A mixture of genders, with a salonnière at the center, regular meetings in a private house that has been expanded to a semi-public space, conversation as the most important element of the activity, permeability of the participant structures, and a tendency to have no further goals beyond conviviality” (1999). He also includes internationality as a further characteristic. These hallmarks can largely be applied to the Salons of the Republic. The “tendency to have no further goals beyond conviviality” requires comment here: The salons do not see themselves in the slightest as a new extraparliamentary opposition that questions representative democracy and demands to be institutionalized within the power structure. No, they see themselves as places of deliberation and communication. For such “noninstitutionalized streams of communication” (p. 137) the term “deliberative democracy“ has been coined. In his essay, Jonas Aaron Lecointe sheds light on the concepts of democracy that underlie the liberal, deliberative, and republican forms of representative democracy and the challenges that digi­ talization poses for the actors in a democracy. Civilizing the internet involves more than curbing shitstorms and bemoaning the perceived loss of freedom of speech when confronted with contradiction. What is required instead is “a strong civil society that […] promotes [protest and dissent] […] wherever they stand against hate speech and thereby contribute to an actual plurali­ zation of positions” (p. 145). There is certainly no shortage of democratic actors in Germany – and yet today’s political climate seems increasingly characterized by a dwindling capacity for dialogue. This apparently leads to two opposing but mutually reinforcing forms of behavior: on the one hand, to retreat into a “selfaffirmation milieu” (Bernhard Pörksen) that allows us to ignore the Other, and on the other hand, to the outbreak of savage violence when encoun­ tering the Other. In order to reverse this tendency, a debate culture in which Preface   7

its participants hold each other in mutual critical as well as constructive esteem would need to be cultivated and encouraged, as carrying out dis­ putes of statement and contradiction is essential for democracies. Without the exchange of arguments, of for and against, we are unable to develop positions which were voluntarily arrived at by virtue of the more plausible argument, and which thus go beyond those which one happens to inherit or are arbitrarily decreed. The cultivation of debate, however, not only requires netiquette. Built rooms are equally important – rooms that free minds and loosen tongues, whose design “has something to say to us.“ Our democracy is lacking in precisely such spaces: All over the country, our seminar rooms are sober and neutral instead of stimulating and inspiring. What we need are rooms that affect, that “set the tone,” that play on the whole scale of dramaturgi­ cal possibilities and open up alternative forms of conversation: exchanging ideas, talking things out, confiding in one another, palavering, chatting, debating, discussing, persuading, reasoning, squabbling, cheering up, ob­ jecting … Only then can salons develop in which insights are spawned in the overlap between private and public life, where everyone can get involved, where milieus mix. Such distinctive, intense rooms were developed in two of our design seminars. They do not need to – and indeed should not – be to everyone’s taste, especially as declarations of one’s judgment of taste is often no more than a premature expression of an urge to boost one’s own ego. No, to enter them – once they have been built – means encountering the Other (which has, as it were, become room, become architecture) and thus an invitation to engage in dialogue and exploration. The timid seminar rooms, walling themselves off in their neutrality, extend no such invitation. In my essay, I attempt to outline an initial typology of rooms of dialogue, a draft as the basis for later interdisciplinary elaboration. Sandra Speer examines various present-day lab cultures – innovation labs, co-working spaces, government labs, and real-world laboratories – and sees the Salons of the Republic in this context as “ideal locations […] for multi-perspective, open labs that cut across policy areas” (p. 151). But where should these Salons of the Republic come into being? Wher­ ever free speech is guaranteed, or where it needs to be fought for! In other words, everywhere. For obvious reasons, we chose Berlin as our starting point, and then, at the suggestion of Peter Cachola Schmal, we designed salons for Paulsplatz in Frankfurt. Peter Cachola Schmal chronicles the ongoing discussion regarding the development of Paulsplatz and argues for a bold approach to the church and the square, because “Despite the dis­ solution of parliament and the suppression of the 1849 revolution, today, in contrast to earlier interpretations, the Paulskirche parliament is no longer regarded as time lost or as a defeat along the lines of: We Germans have 8

never yet managed to carry a revolution through to its conclusion. On the contrary, today we see the non-violent struggle for words and content, for resolutions and decisions, as exemplary for democratic disputes” (p. 128). In the public eye, architects often serve as the chief perpetrators of the impositions of the modern world. This allocation of blame is based primarily on the erroneous assumption that what is built is the unadulterated outpour­ ing of the egomaniacal dreams of the demigods in black. Ralf Kunze, on the other hand, in his reflections on design and design theory based on his extensive experience, sheds light on the fact that during the design process, architects always also operate as actors, putting themselves in the position of the users, imagining their potential behavior, feeling their way into this role and allowing themselves to be guided by it, and never losing touch with the benefits of self-doubt and reconsideration. The only way this attitude can be “taught” is by the teachers engaging with the students’ flow of imagina­tion and ideas on a weekly basis and empathically encouraging each and every one of them to engage in an inner, self-critical dialogue – in other words, the teachers do not allow themselves to take on the role of a judge until the very last minute. In the comic strip „A Day in the Salon of the Repu­ blic,“ drawn by the seminar participant Johanna Rech, as well as in the com­ ments of students of Applied Social Sciences, who, under the guidance of Elvira Schulenberg, studied the designs for the Berlin Salon and shared their impressions with us, we show how the salons might perform in real life. In the chapter „Making Of,“ I explain the didactic steps underlying the sem­inars, in particular the concept of the collaborative design studio. To date, approximately 17,000 hours of student work have gone into the designs docu­ mented here. This also means 17,000 hours of manifold forms of conversa­tion with oneself and others. Thus, in the process of being created, the designs already practice what they preach: productive, respectful, joyful debate.

Works Cited Saskia Reis (March 14, 2021): Ganz Ohr. Zuhören und reden – nicht trotz, sondern wegen Corona. Zwei pensionierte Lehrer haben in Berlin-Kreuzberg einen Zuhör-Kiosk eröffnet. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/leben/corona-einsamkeit-zuhoer-kiosk-1.5222447 (last accessed: March 25, 2021). My Country Talks (2021): https://www.mycountrytalks.org/datenschutz-deutschlandspricht-2020 (last accessed: March 25, 2021). Simanowski, Roberto (1999): Einleitung. Der Salon als dreifache Vermittlungsinstanz. In: Sima­ nowski, Roberto/Turk, Horst/Schmidt, Thomas: Europa – ein Salon? Beiträge zur Internationalität des literarischen Salons. Göttingen: Wallstein, pp. 2–3.

Preface   9

A Day at the

SALONS OF THE REPUBLIC Illustrations: Johanna Rech Story: Holger Kleine

10

WHAT ARE WE D O I N G O N SATU R DAY ? Freddie, 67, from Angermünde is visiting his daughter Lisa (35) and grandson Max (7) in Berlin. Going to the playground What are we all the time is boring, doing on grandad. Let’s do someSaturday? thing different for a change.

We could go to the Salon of the Republic! You can meet people, take part in discussions, learn stuff … and I heard there are things for kids, too.

Yes, Freddie, yes, that’s the place I mean, but maybe we could just go there with an open mind and see what it’s all about?

Is that the block of concrete that they built up at the Reichstag for loads of money – my taxes? That talking shop for people with nothing better to do?

If Max doesn’t mind … Fine by me …

  11

A RRIVAL. … and what’s that?

What’s that?

That’s the Kanzleramt. That’s where they carry out the laws they make over there.

That’s the Reichstag. That’s where the people that all the grownups voted for discuss and decide which laws we have to stick to … So that we all get along with each other.

Sounds cool! When I grow up, I want to be Prime Minister!

Well why not …

And that one?

Max, it says what it is, you can read it, can’t you? SA-LON-OF-THERE-PU-BLIC. That’s where we’re heading …

Ugh … it’s always the grownups who decide … but it sounds like it’s important …

My dacha looks nicer … I don’t wanna know how much that massive staircase cost …

Yeah, ok, ok, Freddie, but here people are sitting on the stairs and talking. Nobody comes to your stuffy old dacha to talk. 12

FI RST IM PRESS I O N S . Look, they’re painting over there! I thought this place was just for talking?

Oh look, that’s interesting, they’re showing a film about farming in Meckpomm. I’d like to watch that …

Wow, this place is huge …

And there are kids riding bikes and stuff over there …

Alright, Freddie, why don’t you sit down on the steps over there and watch the film … and we’ll meet up again here for lunch at one o’clock …

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THE HALL. Lisa takes a look at the hall. She’s amazed at how big it is … but she doesn’t feel lost, in fact she feels energized.

MUMMIIIEEEEE! I want to go on a bike and ride around! Look – up there!

Look, Max, you can play draughts and Chinese And “Yes! No!” chequers… too. But come on, let’s go!

I’ll come and pick you up later …

Take your time! 14

LISA TAKES A LO O K A R O U N D. In the hall, a group of people from N. is calling for the release of C.

Lisa doesn’t want to sign yet. There are so many topics where Lisa does NOT YET know exactly what is right and what is wrong and who is behind it and what is involved and so on… and there are even more topics where Lisa NO LONGER knows what to think. Actually, she has a pretty clear idea of what is important to her: justice, freedom, democracy, sustainability, tolerance and so on … But it’s the NOT YETs and NO LONGERs that have brought her here. First of all, she goes down the stairs, there must be more rooms under the hall.   15

She hears voices and goes into the Louise Begas-Parmentier salon. Every day, a cow burps and farts 2-300 liters of methane into the atmo­sphere!

Oh c’mon … are you saying I can’t drink milk any more or what?

Pretty aggressive mood in here … I’m sure it has something to do with the room …

Lisa goes on to the next room. In the Julie Bondeli salon, two school classes are discussing the subject of clothes. Quite calmly and seriously. Maybe that has something to do with the room, too?

I know you’re right, we ought to find out whether our sneakers are produced under fair conditions and what their CO2 footprint is, but …

16

In the Bettina von Arnim salon, people are discussing something in Arabic. Lisa doesn’t understand a thing but thinks it’s great that it’s not just the men doing the talking. One of the women explains to her that the same four families from Damascus meet here every Saturday. They like the salon and the atmosphere of the whole place.

The woman translates for her:

He said: You can’t just take that at face value, you’ve got to take the context into account in which he said that.

Inside, seven or eight people are lying, squatting, sitting, all talking quietly and intently with the people next to them.

CAN THE PLANET STILL BE SAVED? Discussion begins at 11 a.m.

It’s always been alright so far, hasn’t it?!

Lisa is not so sure. She goes on to the next room.   17

But that’s like industrial production!

In the Annemarie Renger salon, parents are holding a heated discussion on the maximum size of children’s daycare groups. Those days are over for Lisa. She moves on.

In the Emma Herwegh salon: MY HOME IS MY PARCEL – Can online shopping be sustainable?

Well, let’s put it this way …

Lisa was pleased when the “Returns Passage” opened at the main station. She feels less guilty about going shopping when she does it there. But now, with corona, she doesn’t go shopping much anyway.

After six salons, Lisa feels tired. And she hasn’t even said a word yet. She goes to the Kneipp basin and bathes her feet. That’s relaxing …

… so relaxing in fact, that she heads to one of the sleeping tents and takes a nap. Lisa dreams that she keeps opening her mouth, but nothing comes out … 18

LU NCH .

And then …

… then I crashed into Mona on my scooter … but she wasn’t mad at me …

… then we played twister …

… and then we played hide and seek over there … it’s called “Forest of Words” or something … Mona comes from Angola. She’s really cool!

  19

The film was really interesting. This guy called Ole from Norddeich-Mole was sitting next to me …

Lisa spots three of the school children she had seen earlier, sitting at the next table: It was really weird how everyone seemed to agree when we were in the one room, and then we went over to the other one, and we started discussing again, and we realized that we hadn’t even talked about the really tricky bits yet …

20

… afterwards, we went to this citizens’ advice bureau behind the tribune and asked a lady from the Ministry of Consumer Protection for ideas on how to coordinate our initiatives for controlled fishing in Meckpomm and Lower Saxony. Ole is involved in one of them. We’re going to meet up next month.

… further away they’re still discussing cows and methane …

I N TH E H ALL . So then I signed, the way people are being intimidated in N. is a disgrace.

… this hall is really something. You can do all kinds of things here. And yet it’s not chaotic.

After listening to Freddie for a while, Lisa signs too.

Look, there’s a ramp. It leads to the roof!

  21

… WHERE IT HA PPEN ED.

We’ll find out later what goes on here …

This is the way to the roof.

“Forest of Words” – this is where Max and Mona played hide and seek.

22

This is where Freddie and Ole watched the film.

The citizens‘ advice bureau – this is where Freddie and Ole got advice.

This is where they had lunch. This is w here Max cras hed into – in the Mona children’ s traffi training c center.

p in ok a na g Lisa to pin e he sle one of t ts. ten

Board game area – the scene of Max and Mona’s twister tournament.

  23

ON T H E ROOF. Ah … nice to get some fresh air!

I want an ice cream!! Umm … please, I mean …

What a fantastic view of the Reichstag …

They explore the rooftop garden …

Look, herb beds. You can register as a sponsor, Lisa!

This makes me feel like I’m on the dike in Holland.

Finally – a sandpit for young and old.

24

And a pergola for those in between …

Freddie and Ole meet up again in the beer garden …

… is the pollution in the North Sea different from the Baltic, Ole?

I never thought I’d hear the Stones live again …

eating …

You’re ch

I’m not!

It’s just people doing karaoke.

I know, I know … a man can dream!

  25

L ISA H AS H ER SAY. … 2 hours later in the outdoor movie theater … As today is the 14th of July, we are broadcasting directly from the Salon de la République in Paris … You will hear Monsieur Le Président de la République, Emmanuel Macron …

Lisa’s heart is pounding …

… it’s amazing how quickly the salon concept has swept the globe … from Berlin to Paris, Brussels, New York, Durban … but also Ober-Ursel and Venerque and Zoutelande … I’ve learned so much from it … What idea would you like to leave with me tonight, Berlin?

IT’S NOW OR NEVER! Lisa goes to the microphone … What’s worrying me, Mr.President … Paris is wonderful, but normal people can’t afford the rent there anymore … I don’t want it to get like that in Berlin too …

, HEAR … R A HE

BOO! 26

O!

BRAV

Madame, you are so right, we need to learn from one another, what we need is a European building and land policy …

I’m booking the Rachel Varnhagen salon for next Thursday at eight … Topic: land policy, you’re all invited. Sign up at www.sdr.de.

Lisa has only just finished speaking when a storm breaks out … everyone take cover!

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THE DANCE F LO O R O F THE R EPUB L IC. Every night it’s party time, the congress is dancing … the republic is dancing!

What they’ve done with my taxes isn’t too bad after all …

28

…t har he mee d t but work ing wi ll b next it’s fun, wee e k a wor th i nd it’ll … be t…

… that’s Ms. Thorn dancing over there, my local MP …

Angola … maybe go to come Mr. be d an … with Mona ster … ini M e and Mrs. Prim why not … … re he or … there

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BERLIN

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The most fruitful and natural exercise of our minds, in my opinion, is conversation. I see in its practice the most delightful activity of our lives. […] If I am contradicted, it arouses my attention, not my displeasure; I am drawn to those who contradict me, who instruct me: the truth should be the common cause of us both. Michel de Montaigne In: Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais, 1580. Book Three, Chapter Eight. Quoted from Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de, Les Essais. ed. P. Villey and V.-L. Saulnier. Online edition by P. Desan, University of Chicago. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ efts/ARTFL/projects/montaigne/.

Berlin

THE LOCATION

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Berlin

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Vectorworks Educational Version

Vectorworks Educational Version

1928

Vectorworks Educational Version

1938

Vectorworks Educational Version

Our first salon of the republic was designed for Berlin – for one, because Berlin is the capital of Germany, and because Berlin is a city that has seen the ideological struggles of the twentieth century manifest themselves as built space in rapid and painful succession like no other. Nowhere is this more palpable than in the Spreebogen: The four site plans show the

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Vectorworks Educational Version

Vectorworks Educational Version

1945

Vectorworks Educational Version

today

Vectorworks Educational Version

development from the elegant Wilhelminian-style Alsenviertel to the National Socialists’ tabula rasa plans of 1938 (which included diverting the Spree, the construction of a rather large hall and a new Reich Chan­ cellery), to the wastelands and the deforested Tiergarten of 1948, to the construction and fall of the Wall, to the situation today.

Berlin

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The site of our choice allows us to symbolize and enable proximity between citizens and their representatives. That this is no coincidence can be explained by recent planning history: In 1992, the architectural firm headed by Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank won the international competition for the redesign of the government district in Berlin with its seminal idea of the “Band des Bundes” (“Federal Ribbon”). At its center, as the link between the executive and legislative authorities, they proposed a citizens‘ forum. This is all the more remarkable because such a forum was not envisaged in the program. The architects thus also became involved in their role as citizens and launched an idea that would then have to be brought to life by the public. From time to time, various volumetric studies came to light from their office; in 2005, Helmut Kohl spoke out against the construction of the citizens‘ forum; in 2006 the Berlin mayor Wowereit in favor, and in 2014 the Berlin branch of the German association of archi­ tects, BDA, had its members do a trial run with a small competition for ideas. Programmatically, there was at times talk of housing the exhibition “Questions on German History” in the forum – this in itself a small-min­ ded, because merely museological idea – but according to Wikipedia, the citizens‘ forum was even supposed to just “become a place for the public with various cafés, galleries and stores” ¹ – the citizen as a mere high-end consumer? Finally, in 2018, the Berlin Senate dashed all the architects‘ fantasies and quashed citizens‘ discussions by having the hitherto provisio­ nal design and layout of the road laid down in the land-use plan procee­ dings. Asphalt instead of agora! The chance to create a central and novel place for no-holds-barred, no-claim-to-power discussion in full view of legitimate power was a terrifying idea which needed to be thwarted!

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The salon of the republic we designed is thus both an update and a con­ cretization of the idea of the citizens‘ forum and thus also a tribute to the architects Schultes + Frank in particular and to all those architects in gen­ eral who – such as my New York professors John Hejduk and Diane Lewis many decades ago – also see themselves as inventors of programs. Four worlds are layered in the Berlin Salon of the Republic: Beneath the building is open space: the building spans Annemarie-RengerStraße. At ground level, Berlin‘s largest bicycle parking lot, a few en­closed blocks for security and technology, and two glass cubes – one facing toward the Federal Chancellery containing a book exchange, the other, fac­ing the Reichstag, the main entrance. A second entrance from the north, coming from the direction of the main train station, leads directly into the main hall over a pedestrian bridge and, via a ramp, directly onto the roof. Above the open space are the salons, above them the main hall, and at the top the roof landscape.

¹ Wikipedia (2021): Bürgerforum (Berlin). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bürgerforum_(Berlin) (last accessed: March 25, 2021).

Berlin

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Berlin

THE SALONS

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Berlin

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Underneath the spacious hall are the individual salons in which smaller groups can hold debates. Whether the salons can be used spontaneously or only according to a schedule will become clear once they are in use. The salons are colorful and diverse – intended not to set off visual fireworks, but to expose the debaters to a wide variety of atmospheres and thus stimulate the most diverse forms of conversation: exchanging ideas, talking things out, confiding in one another, insinuating, palavering, chatting, debating, discus­ sing, persuading, reasoning, squabbling, cheering up, objecting … We call these rooms salons because they stand in the tradition of the salon culture that flourished particularly brightly in Berlin during the Romantic period and was cultivated especially by women of the Jewish bourgeoisie. Each salon is named after a famous salonnière.

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Berlin

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Berlin

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Among the salons for debate, another 14 salons have been smuggled in, in which the debaters can non-verbally let off steam: studios where visitors can paint or sew, climbing towers, footbaths, sleeping tents, punching bags … places for everyone to unwind and continue to ponder, just as they please. The possibility to go back and forth between the hall and the salons, as well as between the different atmospheres and activities offered by each salon, means that people of all generations and from all kinds of background will be able to while away entire days in the building. The model studies show an intersecting room that sets the mood for the debating salon. In the salon behind it, the staggered panes of the intersect­ ing room are tilted horizontally to arch over the salon. The Kneipp basin is designed as a place for visitors to relax. Berlin

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Berlin

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Berlin

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Berlin

THE MAIN HALL

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The main hall presents itself as a spacious landscape whose plateaus are arranged around an S-shaped river valley – this is its poetic leitmotif. The banks of the valley are lined with steps to sit on, ascending in three places to form “hills” that go all the way up to the ceiling and are well suited for use as terraces for larger events as well as for hanging around. They have static functions and contain utility spaces such as emergency stairs, eleva­ tors, technical and sanitary rooms. Their open formation (a triad, facing in different directions, widely spaced), highlights the flow of the room.

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The comic illustrates the possible uses of the hall. In the large-scale mo­ del (1:100) and in the charcoal and pencil perspectives, we have, however, depicted the hall as abstract and empty, because it was important to us to create a space that, despite the mix of uses and all the hustle and bustle, retains its feel of spaciousness and animated tranquility. The architec­tural settings are to be understood as enabling the activities, as well as a stabi­ lizing counterweight to them.

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In aesthetic terms, the hall is dominated by a sense of unity and in func­ tional terms by diversity – in the salon floor below, this situation is rever­ sed: Functional unity and aesthetic diversity dominate here. Coming from the hall, one goes down the stairs to the salon floor. To apply psychological terminology, one could say that the visitor descends from the hall to the deeper level of the salons, where the contradictions beneath the uniform surface become evident.

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The areas of the main hall are partly utilized by permanent facilities (citi­ zens’ consultation services, canteen, bar), partly by activities that can be adapted to demand (in-door playground as a traffic training kindergarten, play area, Forest of Words) and partly by regular events (film screenings, dance floor). Large screens can be used for major events to transform the entire 150 × 100 meter main hall into a convention hall. The bar runs dia­ gonally through the canteen, which is lit from the south. The ramp leading to the rooftop landscape separates the Forest of Words from the dance floor. The block below the traffic training kindergarten houses the canteen kitchen and the sanitary rooms. 56

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The light coming in from the zenith is shaped, diffused, and dappled by the openings in the ceiling – a playful dancing light enlivening the landscape. The hall offers many opportunities to wander back and forth, to climb up and down, to pass through and to linger.

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THE ROOF

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The roof, too, is designed as a sweeping plateau landscape. Here, how­ ever, the relationship of the higher and lower areas is reversed. Not a river valley, but a dike winds its way through it. An outdoor movie theater and a stage, an herb garden and a beer garden, a playground and a sunbathing lawn are dotted around the dike. The beer garden is canopied by a pergola. The roof landscape is structured by double rows of hedges, the circulation blocks, and the cuts that provide the hall with light.

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Seen from the dike, many of Berlin’s most striking landmarks cluster around this roof of the republic like stage props: the dome of the Reichstag …

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… the Federal Chancellery “tent,” the gate-like structure of the train sta­ tion, the block of the Charité, the shards of Potsdamer-Platz, the green sea of the Tiergarten …

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MAKING-OF

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The Berlin Salon of the Republic seminar (WS 2018/19) was a didactic experiment. At least for me, the task structure used to carry it out was completely untested. Subsequently, I embarked on similar experiments with varying degrees of success in Wiesbaden, Istanbul, Dhaka, Berlin, Monter­ rey, and Minsk – until the pandemic forced us all to completely change tack. 70

The crucial didactic question facing anyone teaching a design seminar is: individual work versus group work. The proponents of individual work put forward the benefits of the verifiable acquisition of professional skills, the high degree of motivation on the part of the students (“seeing themselves reflected in the design”), and the intense experience of working alone. After all, they argue, designing is nothing if not permanent soliloquy and persistent self-criticism. The objectors, on the other hand, point to the lack of social competence acquired through individual work and allude somewhat derisively to the fact that students often simply remain trapped in solitude, learning to wait for the professor‘s corrections instead of culti­ vating soliloquy and conducting exploration by means of drafting designs. Group work, they argue, has the advantage of promoting the acquisition of social competence as well as the fact that design is always a matter of social responsibility and is carried out collectively in the architects’ office anyway. Opponents of group work, on the other hand, argue that the dar­ ing act of “projecting” (i.e., launching a design into empty space and into an uncertain future) must first be experienced for oneself before it can be shared, and that motivation decreases when students not only have to contend with their own lack of experience and competence, but also with that of others. Wanting to use one method and yet not disregard the other, design profes­ sors often first have the whole thing designed collectively and then have in­ dividual aspects elaborated by individual students. In my opinion, however, in terms of the students’ motivation, this is the wrong way round, as they now have to work to the sometimes bitter end on a design with which they can often only identify to a limited extent or which they even perceive as an expression of their lack of assertiveness. It is quite especially the wrong order for students of interior architecture since they are usually keener on creating a happy place in a quiet corner than working on large-scale fever dreams.

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To avoid the motivation dilemma, the seminar was based on the following five stratagems: From the particular to the big picture The order collective/individual was reversed: First, each individual student designed three salons. After three or four corrections, the interior shape and inner shell of the room were defined and were off-limits to others as far as changes were concerned. This ensured that each student would have contributed something of their own to the overall design. Only once the salons had taken shape did we go on a five-day excursion to Berlin and “deal with the big picture.” The big picture, step by step But how to progress from individual designs to a coherent overall design? Nothing would be more didactically disastrous than to organize one small competition and then have all the students slave over the presentation of the winning design. What we did instead was to break down the route to the overall design into a number of small tasks to be solved alone or in small groups: Each individual step was discussed, then a vote was taken to choose one solution, the next task was formulated based on this result, and its deadline was negotiated … This way, no one was ever permanently “out of the running” and everyone remained involved in the overall process. This motivated the students, and in fact not one single student ended up winning two of these small competitions. (And in the end, I did not have to exercise my right of veto even once – which I had requested not so much to prevent a vote for possible aberrations of taste, but to prevent a vote for proposals that would have proved too complex to proceed with.) In addition to motivation, however, breaking the process down into individual steps also helped students realize that designing means standing at everchanging forks in the road, going forward and then retracing one’s steps, and having to make choices. The steps involved were roughly as follows: designing the interior shape of the hall (podium landscape, parcours) – de­ signing the connecting paths (the banks of the “river” et cetera) – designing the supporting structure (terraces) – determining the program – designing the ceiling (slats, pochés, skylights). 72

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Workshop and input in the “hot” design phase For the most part, the individual steps described above were completed during a one-week workshop in early January 2019. It would not have been possible to unleash the students’ enthusiasm and willingness to make deci­ sions to this extent if they had been carried out as part of everyday teaching routine, i.e., without being able to work on the design all day, every day. Another source of inspiration for everyone during the workshop week was the fact that Parisian architect Carole Chuffart joined us as a guest lecturer, helping to work on the development of the salons, accompanying each new step, and presenting her own projects in Paris in a fascinating lecture. Once the design was in place, we were able to return to a weekly rhythm for the construction of the two large models. But motivation continued unabat­ ed: As a teacher, I had never previously experienced that, even before the scheduled date, the students had already written “What else needs to be done” on the whiteboard in a meeting they had held on their own … Appropriation of the overall design in individual sketches Everyone collaborated on the two large models, each penciling in his or her salon on the floor plan. To round off the seminar, however, the students also needed to appropriate the overall design for themselves: We decided on a storyboard in DIN A2-sized charcoal and pencil drawings. Everyone sketched his or her favorite motif in his or her own “handwriting” as part of the storyboard.

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Developing a common set of terms However, we don’t want our spatial sequence to just be an architecture full of good intentions, but also good architecture. To ensure that the lan­guage we use and the assessment standards we apply are transparent and comprehensible to all, we need to have read the same works. We therefore studied the effect of rooms and how they are experienced in great detail and repeatedly reviewed our design decisions on the basis of what we were read­ ing together – in this case, the twenty parameters of The Drama of Space (Holger Kleine, Birkhäuser 2017). A building such as ours can only “work” if it prompts us to “oscillate” be­ tween different atmospheres and situations. Thus, in terms of drama typo­ logy, it belongs to the “polarity type,” which gave us a guideline for decisions on the largest as well as on the smallest scale. Or: The effect of intimate rooms, such as the small salons, stems mainly from the way in which the six surfaces of the room are treated and arranged in groups. We call these groups of surfaces “archetypes”; each student had to base his or her design on the character of different archetypes. In addition to the archetypes, we also created diversity within the unity by means of “architectural actions.” “Architectural actions” are like everyday actions such as positioning, placing, overarching, piercing, and so on, but which are carried out and made read­ able by architectural means of design. Making such acts explicit, which are implicit in every design, has two effects: On the one hand, it helps the design to achieve inner coherence; on the other hand, it reveals to the imagination, which is still completely caught up in an idea that has just been conceived, the emergence of new and unfettered possibilities. Above all, however, the semester structure outlined above as a series of five stratagems made it possible to achieve consensus, identification, and motivation surprisingly quickly. Ultimately, the design process was not unlike that in a professional competition team with a flat hierarchy. And during the process, we practiced what the purpose of the building preaches: cultivated, joyful, and goal-oriented debate. And that is why it is a collaborative design. Berlin

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We were able to resume work on the Berlin salons in winter semester 2019/20: Felix Jäger designed the roof landscape in the master program, Johanna Rech drew the comic strip, and students of applied social sciences from the Faculty of Social Work visited our studio and studied the models and drawings. Elvira Schulenberg, who taught the seminar, describes its objectives as follows: “Communication across milieus and where it takes place.” This was the title of the winter semester 2020/21 seminar in which students of social work examined aspects of space as an essential dimension of the experience of social conditions. Our project aimed to analyze and challenge these during the course of cross-milieu use, which the Salons of the Republic are designed to facilitate. Drawings, models, and photographs of selected salons were examined on the basis of depth hermeneutical analysis of culture and experience (Alfred Lorenzer/Søren P. Nagbøl) with regard to their affective impact on potential users. Within the analyses and reflections, concentrated episodes of the experience of space emerged, which illustrate the diversity of social differences in the experience, design, and use of rooms.

Excerpts from the students’ reports on their experience: … I walk up a huge staircase on the right and am at first a little disconcerted, because it goes all the way up to the ceiling. But then I see a young family sitting in a corner at the top and change my mind: On the one hand, you are in the middle of it all and can see everything from up there, but on the other hand nobody disturbs you and you can avoid the crowds … on the mezzanine there are columns everywhere and children‘s laughter. Some children are playing tag. Parents are leaning against the columns watching their children with amusement, fascinated by their attempts to make a game of hopscotch out of the shadows of the columns … (D. Ritterweger)

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… maybe it‘s because of my background, but for me the main hall has a big city feel and the areas with the many small salons are like a village. As the salons are so close together, this creates narrow and winding alleyways, and the width, height, and the exteriors are a colorful mix. The salons and the fact that everything is so close together encourages dialogue. The inhibition you feel to approach someone becomes less inside the salons, whereas it increases in the anonymity of the main hall … (C. Reinhard) … the diversity of the individual salons gives you the opportunity to communicate and exchange a wide range of opinions, to withdraw, to recharge your batteries, and to leave the rooms whenever you feel like it, all at the same time: an opportunity that you don‘t find everywhere … (S. Zehelein) Berlin

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Emma-Herwegh Salon … although I am still quite far away, I can see how many people are present due to the open structure of the salon and can also understand the louder discussions despite the distance. The teal shade of the interlocking frames catches my eye: And I also find the shape extremely appealing. Like multiple, fanned picture frames. It is not directly apparent which side the people are on, as the places where they are sitting or standing are not clearly separated due to the shape of the salon. The impression I get is of people sitting in a large and abstract circle around an imaginary campfire, located in the center of the salon and marked by the overlapping frames. I take a seat on one of the metal beams. The surface is cool. I’m now in the middle of the salon. It seems even more abstract and futuristic than it did from a distance … (C. Reinhard) … the individual steel beams are positioned at different heights. The lowest ones are suitable for children to sit on, the middle ones for me, for example. Because of the frame structure, you can also lean back in the corners. I am really fascinated by the structure, but I don‘t feel comfortable at all, because I feel very vulnerable as everyone can see me. There is absolutely nowhere to hide. My feeling of unease in this room is intensified by how cold and uncomfortable the steel beams are. I can‘t sit here for longer than ten minutes. This salon is definitely something for strong, self-confident people, and not for someone insecure like me … (D. Ritterweger)

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Fanny-von-Arnstein Salon … I enter the dimly lit salon hesitantly because I don‘t know exactly what awaits me inside. I go into the salon through a triangular entrance. My eyes first have to get used to the darker interior. The only light comes from the entrance and the slits in the recesses. The streaks of light move across the floor and walls. My thoughts drift to the origami flower salon and I wonder if there, too, the incident light dances across the floor and creates shapes … (C. Reinhard) … I like cave-like rooms where I can have a wall behind me. The floor is carpeted. People’s faces vanish into the darkness. Through the darkness, I can only hear the voices of the people I am talking to. There is no way to discriminate against anyone based on appearances. This puts me at ease and I can speak quite openly. I feel comfortable here because no one can recognize me either … (D. Ritterweger) … only a small amount of light comes in so you can only make out shadowy figures, but it‘s enough to see which alcove and bench is still free. I feel safe because of the anonymity of the room. The alcove makes me feel like I am being embraced … (J. Hübner)

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FRANKFURT AM MAIN

Copyright: Institut für Stadtgeschichte / Associated Press

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No assembly ever strove more ardently to put perfection into practice. And though in the end it failed, no other build­ing in Germany deserves more the title of cradle of German democracy. John F. Kennedy on June 25, 1963 in the Paulskirche

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MAKING-OF

In the winter semester of 2020/21, the pandemic forced us to find new di­ dactic solutions. In online classes, a single collaborative design was out of the question; on the other hand, it seemed to me to be an effective antidote against social isolation to have students work in small online groups from time to time. I wanted to keep at least something of the spirit of the Berlin seminar alive. The first phase again consisted of designing the individual salons; then, in online discussions, the program was decided upon. The urban situation, however, is much more complicated in Frankfurt. It is actually too sensitive to be dealt with in the context of an interior architecture degree program. There was a real danger that the students would become increasingly frustrated by having to make a rush job of their first urbanistic project of their career due to their increasing awareness of the issue. I therefore 82

first had all the participants build models of their proposals for Paulsplatz and then analyzed them in terms of their typology. Each of the students was then free to use a proposal that he or she had not created, but which now seemed the most plausible, as the basis for the building design. This expropriation or transfer of ideas was accepted without complaint, as it had been explained that we were all part of a single research group that was now trying out different approaches. The size of the groups was left up to the students – some worked alone and some in groups of two to six participants. In some cases, the students met up in person, in others they only communicated with each other online.

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THE SALONS

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Designing salons as attractive, intense rooms for debates and encounters with others was also the starting point of the Frankfurt project. In retro­ spect, it can be said that the salons designed here can be regarded as variations and combinations of three “viable” basic types: the circle, the vis-à-vis, and the auditorium. The variations are created by means of chang­ es in shape (polygons instead of circles), fragmentation (semicircles), special treatments of the outer zone (space-containing walls, alcoves, oriels …), through special entrance zones, tiering, and gallery formations, through intelligent lighting, changes of material and ceiling design. The freefloating nature of these salon structures is conveyed in drawings that play­ fully combine interior elevation and mirrored ceiling plans, cross-sections, and floor plans.

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THE FORMATION OF SPACE

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As for the history of Paulsplatz, I refer you to Google Maps, where it says in all seriousness that Paulskirche is “a church with a political past.“1 Honi soit qui mal y pense. On a more serious note, I refer you to the essay by Peter Cachola Schmal (p. 128). At this point, let me just say this: What makes Paulsplatz particularly difficult is the fact that the square is already bordered on four sides, but two of them have only little effect on the space due to busy streets; that the church turns its convex, forbidding broadside towards Paulsplatz, whose present shape, due to the bombing during the war and a lack of ideas, is strangely lifeless today; and that the church is nevertheless the protagonist of this square and, due to its history, also deserves to be. It is therefore necessary to create a building that reshapes and realigns the square, that forms an ensemble with the church and is not simply its annex. A salon cannot be a mere annex in this location; the salon of the republic must convey a forward-looking image of democracy that can stand alongside the historical image presented by Pauls­ kirche. It goes without saying that a reconstruction of the Alte Börse cannot satisfy this requirement. The redefinition of Paulsplatz is, both spatially and semantically, one of the most complex tasks that Frankfurt – a city that has for decades not exactly suffered a paucity in terms of urban development challenges – has to face today.

Even in the context of an interior architecture degree program, students should definitely deal with urban squares – they are, after all, interiors. They are simply rooms with the sky for a ceiling! And squares are a won­ derful task to teach students the balance of courage and humility that is peculiar to good designers. Not what you draw and build should be the protagonist, but what remains: the space! 102

Lageplan M1:500

After removing any self-aggrandizing building sculptures and displace­ ments of space, six urban development solutions emerged in the seminars, which appeared plausible and which were then to be examined in terms of their suitability for interiors: • Mirroring or variation of an ellipse • Creation of a corresponding element to the ellipse with another geometric primary body • Cube as a calming counterweight to the rotational solid of Paulskirche with its expressive protrusions • Layering of horizontal building masses as a contrast to the upright walls of Paulskirche and their vertical rhythmic structure • Umbrella over a collection of smaller buildings • Walk-on-able building sculpture with stairs, podium, and view Program At Paulsplatz, there is neither sufficient space for the “full program” that we proposed for Berlin, nor is it necessary, as we are in the middle of a busy city center. Paulskirche already has a plenary hall and a permanent exhibition room. What is required is a medium-sized auditorium for about 200 to 300 people, as well as various debating rooms for 15 to 50 people, a café area opening onto the square, spaces in between that invite people to linger, and zones for temporary exhibitions and for childcare, as well as small, enclosed rooms for consultations, for creating and broadcasting podcasts, and the like.

1 Google Maps (2021): Paulsplatz. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Paulsplatz/@50.1090432,8. 6698209,14.24z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47bd0ea60684d53d:0xd3e9a1eece16ee3!8m2!3d50.1114457! 4d8.6818298 (last accessed: February 25, 2021).

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THE EXPLORATION

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The storyboards examine whether the entrance hall and the circulation space are a balance of clarity versus concealment, accumulation versus distribution, series versus sequences, and concave, inviting spaces versus linear, forward-propelling ones. Directing the visitor‘s path, their gaze, and the distribution of light are not intended to dictate the way the visitor experi­ ences the rooms, but rather to open up options for individual appropriation. 108

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THE ROOM CONFIGURATIONS

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The configuration of the circulation space – the communicative galleries, staircases, and levels – and the recreation rooms – the salons, the audito­ rium, the café - requires a central theme:

… In this study, the salons float like clouds under the ceiling of a hall with a very high ceiling and windows on both sides. At one end of the hall, the floor descends in steps to form an auditorium.

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… In these three studies, the floors are staggered at half-story level to en­ able visitors to look across the central halls to several different levels. The salons, with their very different atmospheres, are arranged around circula­ tion space and can open up to them as required, like picture-frame stages.

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… In this study, the building mass forms a concave, space-containing back wall behind a floor-to-ceiling elliptical stage. 114

… In this study, a cube lying quietly in the urban space is crisscrossed by gently undulating waves that one could assume are emanating from the ellipse of Paulskirche. The connecting paths follow the oscillating con­ tours and loop around the salons. The entire interior becomes an audito­ rium with indistinct edges in which the individual salons are seated like listeners.

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5th floor

4th floor

3rd floor

2nd floor

Ground floor

Basement

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… the two following studies are based on the same urbanistic idea: The bulbous space of the Römerberg flows through the narrow “bottleneck” to Paulsplatz, where it concertinas into a large urban flight of stairs. This leads up to a platform that presents a view of Frankfurt‘s urban landscape. The space underneath the staircase, however, is interpreted quite differently:

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… in this study, the interior is dominated by an end wall that is as tall as the building itself and illuminated from above. It harmonizes and unifies the room. The sunlight playing upon it creates an ever-changing mood, depending on the time of day. Opposite it, under the sloping roof, the floor descends to form an auditorium. The salons line the longitudinal wall, turning it into a walk-in, space-containing wall. Between the salons are alcoves that supply the hall with lateral light and where people can retreat to engage in dialogue. The salons are accessible via galleries. Despite the fact that the end wall is so dominant at first, it is not the end point of the promenade architecturale; instead, the rooms that line the route open up at several points to form terraces, platforms, and open staircases that lead back to the city. It is therefore a circular route full of variety. Frankfurt am Main

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… the formation of space in this study is related to that of the previous design. Here, however, the salons do not so much form a space-containing wall as a perforated, hollowed-out and dramatically illuminated block, turning the ascent to the salons and the terraces into an exciting journey of discovery. This mountainous scenery, which may remind residents of Frankfurt of the canyons in Hans Hollein’s Museum für Moderne Kunst, is calmed by the uniform cladding of the salons‘ exteriors with wooden slats. In front of the block are the auditorium and a ground-level hall with a café and areas that can be used for a variety of purposes, traversed only by a row of columns.

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As the teacher of the seminar, I found the idea of the stair sculpture the most convincing from an urbanistic point of view. It radiates presence without dominating, it communicates without ingratiating itself, it invites at first glance instead of being hidden behind an entrance door, and with its staircase and podium it offers the city something it does not yet have: a space for everyone that is both in the very heart of the city and above it. This space combines qualities of the piazza of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the steps of the Grande Arche de la Defense in Paris.

The four perspective studies demonstrate the qualities of this solution for Frankfurt’s urban space:

… The view from Bethmannstraße in the west shows that the diagonal line of the staircase corresponds with the Paulskirche tower as another form of structure pointing skyward … and it shows how the glass wall and the glass pulpit invite the visitor to explore … Frankfurt am Main

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… the three-quarter perspective from the southwest presents the building as a sculpture that can be appropriated in many ways, both inside and out.

… the view from Braubachstraße in the east presents the staircase as an informal gathering place for urban society … 124

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… the view from Römerberg in the south shows the staircase as an extension and tribune for Frankfurt‘s most important square … 126

What the Spanish Steps are for Rome,

THE REPUBLICAN STEPS could become for Frankfurt.

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Peter Cachola Schmal

THE PLANNED CENTER OF DEMOCRACY AT PAULS­K IRCHE IN FRANKFURT “As a resonance chamber for critical reflection and social debate, it attracts international attention once a year when the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is awarded at the close of the Frankfurt Book Fair: Frankfurt’s Paulskirche, where on May 18, 1848, members of the first all-German parliament came together to hold the first session of the German national assembly, in order to discuss the foundation of a German nation-state, features more prominently in the public’s awareness today as a site of a democratic culture of debate than as a site of democratic history.” Monika Grütters (November 24, 2020)

On November 24, 2020, in an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters, laid out the reasons for her plans to establish a federal foundation that would explicitly concern itself with sites of Germany’s democratic history of the 19th century. Frankfurt’s Paulskirche is the most significant of these sites, even more so than Rastatt (the 1849 Baden Revolution) and Hambach Castle (the 1832 Hambach Festival, the first major national public demonstration). The year-long work of the Paulskirche Parliament in Frankfurt am Main that began in May 1848 is considered to be the birth of German parliamentary democracy, and the “Paulskirche Constitution” adopted there with its “Basic Rights of the German People” was a model for the Weimar Constitution and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. Despite the dissolution of parliament and the suppression of the 1849 revolution, today, in contrast to earlier interpretations, the Paulskirche parliament is no longer regarded as time lost or as a defeat along the lines of: We Germans have never yet managed to carry a revolution through to its conclusion. On the contrary, today we see the non-violent struggle for words and content, for resolutions and decisions, as exemplary for democratic disputes. 128

Currently, discourse is rapidly turning into hate speech, smear campaigns, and violence, not only in the virtual realm, in social media, and in digital comment sections, but subsequently also in real life.

National Assembly in 1848 in the Paulskirche; note also the spectators on the upper balcony, drawing, Ludwig von Elliott, 1848 | Copyright: Wikimedia Commons

So now, for the occasion of the celebrations of the 175th anniversary of the Paulskirche Parliament on May 18, 2023, there are plans to build something in and around Paulskirche that goes beyond restoration and technical overhaul, which have become necessary due to inadequate fire protection, lack of air conditioning, dark­ ening devices, insufficient systems of sound, media, and lighting, and inflexible seating. This

will not be possible in time for the anniversary itself, but the time between now and then is to be used to design a concept for a center of democracy and for the subsequent architectural competition for its realization. Many fundamental questions about the center of democracy must be answered before 2023 What is a center of democracy anyway? Is it more than just a collection of seminar-like rooms in which events of various sizes and types can be held (such as the salons which are the subject of this publication)? What makes this task special and how would this be expressed? What would be an appropriate structural design for the functions for which it is intended (events, meetings plus required ancillary rooms plus organization and staff)? How much space would be needed for the program that would be developed, and where could this required space be located? In the immediate vicinity of Paulskirche – and it would have to be here – there are actually only two realistic possibil­ ities: firstly, within the neighboring building on Paulsplatz, the north annex of City Hall, in which large areas will become available in the foreseeable future due to the relocation of the treasury; and secondly, as a new neighboring development on the open space of Paulsplatz, replacing the sycamore grove that was planted in the late 1980s as an “interim solution” to secure space for future development after an urban planning competition failed to reach a satisfactory decision. Before the war, a masterpiece of classicism, the old stock exchange (Alte Börse), built in 1843 by Friedrich August Stüler (architect of the Neues Museum in Berlin, among others), stood on this site. At this time, the historic Paulsplatz consisted only of the relatively small square in front of Paulskirche, spatially enclosed by the Alte Börse on the right and by the town hall annex on the left.

Paulsplatz 2016, with plane tree grove in the east (on the plot of the of the Old Stock Exchange) and the northern extension of the city hall in the west | Copyright: Department Studios, Frankfurt am Main

The Gothic old town was narrow and winding, making Paulsplatz and the Römer appear large in comparison; this is clearly visible in the 1961 Treuner model in the Historisches Museum Frankfurt.¹

The Treuner model in the Historical Museum Frankfurt shows the narrowness of the old town and the former size of Paulsplatz in front of the Paulskirche at the beginning of the 1940s and its space setting by the Old Stock Exchange by Friedrich Au­ gust Stüler on the left side | Copyright: Historisches Museum / Horst Ziegenfusz

Peter Cachola Schmal  129

Where can we find examples of such centers of democracy and what can we learn from them? The Freiheitsmuseum Rastatt and Hambach Castle mentioned above have redesigned their memorial sites. The architecture firm Albert Speer und Partner (AS+P) was commissioned by Frankfurt’s mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD) to examine these sites in terms of their functions, facilities, space allocation plans, and room sizes, along with an analysis of the Bundestag in Berlin, the EU Parliament in Brussels, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia (Alexander August 23, 2019). They identified four function­ al levels that should be included in a “Paulskirche center of democracy”: firstly, Paulskirche as a “symbol,” as a prestigious event venue and landmark that must be cultivated. Secondly, its use as an “event location,” with low-threshold access for urban society festivities, which would require a restaurant and additional rooms. Thirdly, as a “forum for democratic education,” a place of communication and interaction, which should be open at all times and would roughly correspond to the program of the Salons of the Republic design. Fourth, as a “museum” to keep the history of the Paulskirche Parliament alive, to communicate its values, and to combine the old and the new. Additional rooms would also be necessary for this purpose. The architecture firm Meixner Schlüter Wendt, commissioned by Jan Schneider (CDU), the head of Frankfurt’s building department, who is responsible for the execution of munic­ ipal building projects with his Amt für Bau und Immobilien (ABI) (building and real estate office), and thus also for the renovation work to be carried out on Paulskirche (Leclerc January 22, 2020), carried out more extensive urbanistic studies. The architects analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of four possible locations: either the first floor of the north side of City Hall or as an additional top floor with 130

a view, or the current parking lot on Berliner Strasse, and Paulsplatz. They came to the conclusion that converting City Hall would have too little external impact, would not be distinctive enough as a building, and would not have the desired presence. The only point in its favor in their opinion was the fact that the trees on Paulsplatz could be preserved. The parking lot on Berliner Strasse offered too little space and a poor location; it had the fewest arguments in its favor. They ultimately recommended Paulsplatz in terms of almost all the criteria, as it is well known among the public, it would provide an appropriate gesture; it is a good location for an urban solitaire and would be easily accessible. The only drawback would be the loss of public space and, particularly important today, the loss of the 30-year-old sycamore grove. Mayor Peter Feldmann had already emphasized in the run-up to the exhibition at Deutsches Architekturmuseum Paulskirche: Ein Denkmal unter Druck (A monument under pressure) in November 2019, that he personally was not very keen on having to deal with tree huggers chained to trees and therefore rated Paulsplatz as a politically not particularly viable location. This political unwillingness to consider an important construction project to be of such high priority that one does not shy away from major disputes with tree protectors in order to push through construction projects could end up endangering the entire project, or at least delay the moment by which the necessary decisions need to be made until he is no longer politically responsible and can leave the conflict-laden realization to his successor. Feldmann will serve as mayor until March 2024. Meixner Schlüter Wendt proposed several versions for each of the sites, but their preferred Paulsplatz development was clearly singled out by the press at the press conference in January 2020 and presented to the public with photorealistic renderings. It takes the form of an elevated two-story hall on Pauls­platz, supported by many slender

columns, and thus retaining the permeability of the former tree grove while also allowing the area of the square to continue to be used under the suspended shade roof – a typical compromise between a new large-scale development on the one hand and the continuation of the former use of the site on the other. The reaction of the public, however, was scathing; the photorealistic renderings were not helpful; the mass models, which were still very preliminary at the time, were instead taken at face value and rejected with loud protests. Following the publication of the design, a new citizens’ initiative was even formed with the objective of reconstructing Stüler’s Alte Börse (Costadura November 6, 2019).

The BILD newspaper informs about conceptual ideas for a democ­racy center on the Paulsplatz, which are taken to be literal, because of the precision of the rendering, and are rejected | Copyright: Screenshot BILD.de / Architecture: Meixner Schlüter Wendt

What is the right way to deal with Paulskirche as the authentic site of the parliament?² In 1848, the parliament met in the largest church interior available locally, and temporar­ ily reduced its volume by means of a suspended ceiling in order to improve the acoustics (long reverberation times) and the room temperature (no heating). After one year of parliamentary

Historic Paulskirche with pitched roof 1925, on the right the Old Stock Exchange by Stüler | Copyright: Gottfried Vömel / Institut für Stadtgeschichte

sessions, the church interior again served the Protestant congregation for its original purpose. Paulskirche burned out completely after being bombed in 1944 (Brockhoff/Hock 2004). After the war, the Cologne church architect Rudolf Schwarz created a stark new monumental setting in the burned-out hollow shell of the original. Today’s hall was elevated to a higher level. The route from the portal led through the darkness of the relatively low foyer via two open staircases into the light and brightness of the hall above – an analogy to Germany’s young democracy, which first had to overcome the darkness of the Nazi era and the Second World War it had instigated. This approach, characterized by humility, is no longer considered by conservative forces today to be in keeping with the times; in their opinion, the self-castigation of the early postwar years must be left behind us and democratic achievements celebrated with more self-confidence. Paulskirche lacks glamor, according to Monika Grütters and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who have both been engaged in the project “Orte der Demokratie im 19. Jahrhundert” (Places of Democracy in the 19th Century) for many Peter Cachola Schmal  131

building, and Frankfurt’s city councilors decided in the winter of 2019 not to alter this status, let alone have it removed, thus essentially rejecting opposing efforts to reconstruct the former church interior (Euler November 7, 2019). This decision was made shortly after the opening of the Deutsches Architekturmuseum exhibition Paulskirche: Denkmal unter Druck (Baus September 11, 2019). Paulskirche planning consortium, design of the stairway to the hall / design of the hall, ca. 1946, charcoal drawing | Copyright: Deutsches Architekturmuseum

years. At the request of the German President, Grütters is organizing the “Paulskirche center of democracy” working group, in which the State of Hesse, the City of Frankfurt, and national experts from the fields of history and sociology will work together to find a solution to the questions outlined above. The members of this team of experts are currently being selected and the decision-making levels defined. The federal government has approved the co-financing of the center of democracy and is therefore also involved in all related decisions, much to the displeasure of some Frankfurt city councilors who continue to see themselves in the tradition of the free imperial city. Schwarz’s Paulskirche as a Gesamtkunstwerk is now itself a listed

Comparison of the Paulskirche at the time of the Paulskirche Parliament in 1848 with the suspended ceiling below the second row of windows and today’s condition with the new higher level and the new basement | Copyright: Deutsches Architekturmuseum / Graphic: Feigenbaumpunkt

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The successful reconstruction of the “Neue Altstadt” (New Old Town),³ officially called the Dom-Römer-Areal, has given rise to numerous initiatives calling for further reconstruction projects in the city center. The currently most successful of these initiatives aims to bring about the reconstruction of the Schauspielhaus (theater), built in 1902 by Heinrich Seeling.⁴ The opera house as part of the combined theater and opera house on Willy-Brandt-Platz was built upon remnants of the structure of the Schauspielhaus and, if the city councilors get their way, will make way for a new building considered necessary for technical reasons within the next few years. Here the initiators see the historic opportunity to make their dream a reality. They initiated a petition for a referendum, gathered more than the required 3 percent of the votes of the electorate (15,000

Poster of the exhibition in Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), which helped to place the Paulskirche under protection and thus prevent a reconstruction with demolition of the current design | Copyright: Deutsches Architekturmuseum / Moritz Bernoully

valid votes) within eight weeks and have high hopes that a referendum will be approved in the next few months. While asserting their right to this procedure of direct democracy, an exception which is protected by the constitu­ tion, they simultaneously defame each and every opponent as undemocratic. These conservative movements are highly interesting developments in the context of the development of our parliamentary democracy, because they claim to represent a silent majority that would be ignored by the more left-liberal mainstream. In addition to active older campaigners, they also attract a particularly large number of young people, while the middle-aged segment of the population between the ages of 40 and 60 is almost completely absent. Other initiatives call for the reconstruction of the Rothschild-Palais in Grüneburg Park (architect Michael Landes as co-initiator)⁵ or the rebuilding of the Langer Franz tower on the Römer (architect Christoph Mäckler as co-initiator).⁶ But what is the planned federal foundation “Places of German Democratic History” all about, and what does it have to do with the Paulskirche center of democracy? A federal foundation is entirely organized and funded by the federal government. There are about a dozen such foundations, most of which are based in Berlin. A federal foundation “Places of German Democratic History” would be comparable to the “Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur” (Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany) in terms of both content and potential size. In its 2019 activity report, it reports on its activities in the 20 years of its existence to date (2019): it has sponsored 3,400 exhibitions, held 1,000 events, funded 650 books, supported 150 grant applications annually, facilitated 120 PhD scholarships, and built up an archive of 1 million photographs and 45,000 publications. The foundation has

25 full-time members of staff and an annual budget of 7.5 million euros. A foundation of a similar size could also be gradually built up in Frankfurt. The new federal foundation would coordinate and accompany the work of the aforementioned institutions of the “Places of Democracy in the 19th Century,” such as Hambach Castle. This would include the work of the future Paulskirche center of democracy, which would be governed solely by the city of Frankfurt and presumably co-financed by the state of Hesse and the federal government. The center of democracy would have to be established directly next to Paulskirche, while the federal foundation could be located elsewhere in the city. The significance of the establishment of such an influential institution for the city of Frankfurt cannot be emphasized strongly enough. So far, only three federal institutions are located in the city, the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy BKG, as well as the somewhat better known Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), and the German National Library. However, the announcement of the establishment of the federal foundation was only mentioned in passing in the local press, with some city councilors complaining that they had not been involved in the decision. One can only hope for the city of Frankfurt that not only the federal foundation Places of German Democratic History, but also the center of democracy will become reality despite all the party political and other adversities – thus providing powerful instruments for the future defense of democracy, especially against its enemies within. On March 10, 2021, the federal government passed a bill to establish the federal foundation with its headquarters in Frankfurt.⁷

Peter Cachola Schmal  133

Michael May

REPRESENTATION OF SPACE AND SPACES OF REPRESENTATION In order to examine more closely the layers of meaning implicit in the title of the designs for the Salons of the Republic, one must first note that the word “republic” is derived from the Latin “res publica.” In his Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Fritz Mauthner (1923: 51) points to the fact that this term was used by Cicero in the plural as an “expression of common language like our public affairs” (ibid.). When he used it in the singular, however, it became “a concise term for the common being, the community, or the state” (ibid.). Yet Cicero already anticipated the later change of meaning of the word, because for Cicero “only where the people take part in government” (ibid.) – which is also what the architectural designs and the concept of the Salons of the Republic (!) seek to advance – is “the res publica a real res populi” (ibid.). Mauthner emphasizes in this context that “publicus” is derived from “populus.” In contrast, in the Latin of the Middle Ages, the urban areas of Italy were known as republics, regardless of their form of government.

In contrast, the developed city-states of ancient Greece, in which the sphere of the polis was shared by all free citizens, are regarded as the cradle of the democratic form of government, which, in the concept of the Salons of the Republic, is to be accompanied by critical support by means of the architectural stimulus of “deliberative” forms of “opinion- and will-formation” (Habermas 1996: 429). Excluded from this, however, were not only slaves but also women. Even the master of the house was not able to be free in his capacity as oikonomos, as Hannah Arendt emphasizes in reference to Aristotle (2000), but “only in so far as he had the power to leave the household and enter the political realm, where all were equals” (Arendt 1998: 32). In contrast to the house rules of the oikos, which were based on inequality, for Arendt this equality within the polis constituted the very essence of freedom: “To be free meant […] neither to rule nor to be ruled” (ibid.). This is what the Salons of the Republic aspire to achieve in all their various spatial arrangements. 134

Similarly to Arendt, Jürgen Habermas (1989: 3) also concurs with the separation of oikos and polis in the thinking of the ancient Greeks. Accordingly, “the realm of necessity and transitoriness remained […] shamefully hidden” in the private sphere of the oikos (Habermas 1989: 3f.), while “that which existed become revealed” (ibid.: 4) and thus took on shape only in the light of the public sphere of the polis in the discussion among citizens. Oskar Negt (2002: 312ff.) does concede that Aristotle placed an emphasis on this point in his Politics. He emphasizes, however, that this separation between oikos and polis “did not exist so strictly in antiquity” (ibid.: 312) but was made “subsequently” (ibid.: 313). Aristotle, like Xenophon before him, Negt argues, had discussed them as “problems” and not as an ideal to strive for. Leaving aside this controversy regarding the ancient Greeks (May 2017: 18ff.), the aim of the Salons of the Republic is to overcome this separation of oikos and polis through architectural stimuli.

Although the citizens in the sphere of the polis interacted in “a realm of freedom and permanence […] as equals with equals (homoioi)” (Habermas 1989: 4), Habermas emphasizes that they simultaneously did their best “to excel (aristoiein)” (ibid.). In this context, he points out that the virtues codified by Aristotle were ones whose test lay in the public sphere and could there alone receive recognition. In contrast, the concept of the Salons of the Republic is based on the assumption that, through the culture of deliberation inspired by its various locations and in the course of diverse conversations and debates, the users will develop the ability to include the perspective of others in their own process of opinion, judgment, and will-formation (Kohlberg 1987). When Habermas further elaborates that although “public life, bios politikos, went on in the market place (agora),” (1993: 3), it was not confined to a particular locality, since this “public sphere was constituted in discussion (lexis) […] as well as in common action (praxis)” (ibid.), we see that the concept of the Salons of the Republic also aspires to be effective far beyond a specific locality – not solely, but also through digital interconnectedness (see Lecointe’s essay in this volume). Habermas sees certain parallels between the distinctions of “‘gemeinlich’ and ‘sunderlich,’ ‘common’ and ‘particular’” (ibid.: 6) stemming from the tradition of ancient Germanic law “to the classical one between ‘publicus’ and ‘privatus’” (ibid.) of Roman law. Thus, “[t]he commons was public, publica; for common use there was public access to the fountain and market square – loci communes, loci publici” (ibid.). Accordingly, the Salons of the Republic are not only designed to be such public places, but also offer diverse opportunities and stimuli for interaction, cooperation, and communality through various forms of “praxis.” And where

Habermas sees a historical-etymological line leading from this “common” “to the common or public welfare (common wealth, public wealth)” (ibid.), then this too is something the Salons of the Republic seek to advance. Habermas shows how this common stands opposed to the particular as “this specific meaning of ‘private’ […] reverberates in today’s equation of special interests with private interests” (ibid.). According to his reconstruction, however, precisely this distinction underwent peculiar shifts in feudal times, insofar as the particular in the context of the feudal constitution also referred to “those who possessed special rights, that is, those with immunities and privileges” (ibid.) – indeed, “the particular […], the exception through every sort of exemption was the core of the feudal regime and hence of the realm that was ‘public’” (ibid.) . Habermas calls this a “representative publicness” in which “the prince and the estates of his realm ‘were’ the country and not just its representatives” (ibid.: 7f.). “[W]edded to personal attributes such as insignia (badges and arms), dress (clothing and coiffure), demeanor (form of greeting and poise), and rhetoric (form of address and formal speech discourse in general)” (ibid.: 8), they re-present “their lordship not for but ‘before’ the people” (ibid.) at correspondingly prominent places in specific rituals. Even the German Democratic Republic’s Palace of the Republic, contrary to the intentions of its builders, could not completely liberate itself from this character of a representative publicness at least in the eyes of those members of the population who viewed the government with more skepticism. The Salons of the Republic, however, whose name ironically alludes to that very palace, aspire to be representative public places in a completely different sense, a point to which we will return in more detail later. Michael May  135

Habermas already interprets the monarch’s court as an “enclave,” a “form of the representative publicness, reduced […] and at the same time receiving greater emphasis […] within a society separating itself from the state” (ibid. 11). This reduction of representative publicness then created room for another sphere known as the public sphere in the modern sense of the term: the sphere of public authority, which “assumed objective existence in a permanent administration and a standing army” (ibid.: 18). Thus, the meaning of the attribute public shifts, away from the representative court of a person endowed with authority, to an “an apparatus with regulated spheres of jurisdiction and endowed with a monopoly over the legitimate use of coercion” (ibid.: 18). This transformation from lordship to policing is most clearly perceptible – as Habermas shows – in the development of this public authority into a palpable counterpart confronting those private people who, as mere subjects as they hold no office, are excluded from participation in public authority, and who, therefore, are initially only negatively confined by it. The Salons of the Republic aim to set a deliberative counteraccent to the latter tendencies, which continue to this day in the form of expertocratic and autocratic forms of government currently experiencing a veritable renaissance. Max Weber elaborated that this “bureaucratic state apparatus” (1988: 545), contrary to the implications of the attribute public and “however much it may appear to be otherwise, is in important respects less accessible than the patriarchal orders of the past, which were based on personal duties of piety and taking the specific conditions of each individual case into consideration, precisely ‘with regard for the person’” (ibid.: 546). For just like “the rational political person (homo politicus) as well as the economic person (homo oeconomicus)” (ibid.: 545), the state apparatus “can fulfil its 136

responsibility best if it acts as closely as possible in accordance with the rational regulations of the modern orders” (ibid.: 545f.) – including imposing punishment in procedures of justice – “objectively, ‘without regard to the person,’ ‘sine ira et studio,’ without hate and therefore without love” (ibid.: 545). Habermas has shown, moreover, how even the bureaucratic implementation of welfare state guarantees goes hand in hand with encroachments on what he calls the lifeworld (1987: 361f.). Weber’s concepts of a homo politicus and homo oeconomicus already indicate that together with the apparatus of the modern state a new social order had emerged: bourgeois society, which “at the same time established itself as the realm of commodity exchange and social labor governed by its own laws” (Habermas 1989: 3) under the rule of political economy (May 2017: 25ff.). In this context, a new form of public sphere emerged in the appropriation of the “state-governed public sphere […] by the public people making use of their reason” (Habermas 1989: 51) – also as a “sphere of criticism of public authority” (ibid.). The fact that “the first etymological reference to the public sphere” (ibid.: 2) is not found in the German-speaking world until the end of the 18th century is taken by Habermas as an indication that “this sphere first emerged and took on its function only at that time, at least in Germany” (ibid.: 3). As a bourgeois public sphere in its “fictitious identity of the two roles assumed by the privatized individuals who came together to form a public: the role of property owners and the role of human beings pure and simple” (ibid.: 56), it belongs specifically to this social order. This bourgeois public sphere found its specific home in those salons that were, among other things, the inspiration for the designs of the Salons of the Republic presented in this

catalogue. They represent(ed) a space on the threshold between the private and the public sphere, through which the flow of topics could be channeled from one sphere to the other. As, within the salons, social issues can be interpreted within a context of personal life history that is interwoven with that of others – and, as Habermas emphasizes, in such a way that the “spatial structure of simple and episodic encounters” (1996: 361) is indeed “expanded and abstracted but not destroyed” (ibid.: 366) – they can absorb the resonance of these issues in the private spheres of life, “distill and transmit such reactions in amplified form to the public sphere” (ibid.: 367). Accordingly, the Salons of the Republic would be classified as belonging to what Habermas calls the “impulse-generating periphery,” which, via the household of “normative reasons […] affects all parts of the political system without intending to conquer it” (ibid.: 442) and thus also functions as “a warning system with sensors that, though unspecialized, are sensitive throughout society” (ibid.: 359) “for problems that must be processed by the political system because they cannot be solved elsewhere” (ibid.). In his reflections on the theory of democracy, Habermas thus favors an interplay between democratically constituted institutions of political will-formation and “spontaneous, unsubverted circuits of communication in a public sphere that is not programmed to reach decisions but to seek discovery and solutions to problems and thus is not organized” (1996: 365). The latter takes shape as “sovereignty set communicatively aflow” (ibid.: 371) in those public discourses aimed at influencing administrative power, which, as outlined above, “specialize […] in discovering issues relevant for all of society, contributing possible solutions to problems, interpreting values, producing good reasons, and invalidating others” (ibid.: 485). It can fulfill this function only to the extent

“that it develops out of the communication taking place among those who are potentially affected” (1996: 365) and “carried by a public recruited from the entire citizenry” (ibid.). It was clear to the early Habermas that this “complete inclusion of all those potentially affected, equality of the parties involved, informality of interaction, openness to topics and contributions, revisability of results, etc.” (1993: 41) is not feasible under the conditions of a class society. While Habermas referred to a “plebeian public sphere as a variant that in a sense was suppressed in the historical process” (ibid.: 8), Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, with their “concept of the proletarian public sphere, which embodies an experiential interest that is quite distinct from the bourgeois public sphere,” have investigated “the contradictions emerging within advanced capitalist societies [and] their potential for a counterpublic sphere” (1978: 7f.). The term proletarian, with Marx (1978: 408), is here used to refer to a separation of people from the means of production and the opportunities for self-actualization of their species-being. Accordingly, they see proletarian life as “characterized by the blocking of those elements that, in reality, hold it together” (Kluge/Negt 1978: 10). Through the bourgeois public sphere’s form of the social horizon of experience, this “blocking” (ibid.) – as they elaborate – is not eliminated, but on the contrary reinforced. Their concept of proletarian thus corresponds to a large extent with what Antonio Gramsci (2011) – referring to social classes and groups whose interests are not adequately represented in society and politics – called subalternity. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak took up Gramsci’s term and defined it more precisely with regard to the question of participation in social discourse, stating that subalternity manifests itself in the impossibility of being Michael May  137

“able to be heard” (1996: 292). She emphasizes that only “speaking and hearing complete the speech” (ibid.). Against this background, the proletarian public sphere could be characterized, in her words, as an attempt to “involve oneself in representation, not according to the lines laid down by the official institutional structures of representation” (ibid.: 306). The various, mutually overlapping dimensions of the concept of representation have been examined in particular depth by Henri Lefebvre (2014). What is particularly interesting with regard to the Salons of the Republic project is that he also addressed these conceptual dimensions in his theory of the “production of space.” The way in which the Salons of the Republic – as a whole and in their individual local settings – were architec­ turally conceptualized, equating the design with the experience and perception thereof, is what Lefebvre calls representation of space (1991: 38). For him, however, it is still an open question as to how this representation of space in its entirety and its individual locations with their various symbols and images can actually be experienced by users and how their respective physical properties can be symbolically appropriated. He therefore emphasizes that this appropriation may well take place in different ways within the framework of more or less coherent systems of non-verbal symbols. In this context, he uses the concept of spaces of representation (ibid.: 39) to examine the extent to which certain social groups are able to perceive their lived experiences and concepts as being represented or to represent themselves in the respective locations. Very similarly, Hans Paul Bahrdt speaks of representation in terms of space as a “form of self-representation in which a subject makes visible both himself and that which he has in common with others that is not readily visible, thereby enabling communication and integration” (1974: 45). In the 138  Michael May

words of Alfred Lorenzer, the representation of space associated with the Salons of the Republic, in their entirety and their individual local settings, can be understood as the “formulation of a very specific structure of experience with the means of interior design” (1979: 93), which aspires to create “emerging […] crystallization points of communication” (ibid.: 77) that also transcend milieus. Thus, in conclusion, it remains to be hoped that it will also be possible to find out in practice which spaces of representation the individual localities can promote. Perhaps the Salons of the Republic could even enable individual subaltern groups “to be heard” (Spivak 1996: 292) and, via approaches towards a proletarian public sphere, “involve oneself in representation” (ibid.: 306)?

Jonas Aaron Lecointe

DEMOCRACY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE AMIDST DIGITAL CHANGE The beginning of the commercial use of the Internet in the 1990s and its popularization in the 2000s, thanks to Web 2.0, was accompanied by a euphoric discourse about the Internet’s democra­ tic impact. The Internet’s supporters idealized it as a hierarchy-free space for egalitarian communication systems. This euphoria also captured large elements of the research on participation and digitization, which for a long time assumed “that digital and, in particular, social media promote civic engagement and are in principle positive for democratic society.” (Emmer/Leißner/PortenCheé 2020: 2)

In recent years, the early optimism has increasingly given way to concern over the negative dynamics of online communication for democracy. If one is to believe the opinion columns of major media organizations, the idea that more digitization automatically means more democracy long since ceased to apply. Instead, the assessment is now that “Cyberspace Plus Trump Almost Killed Our Democracy” (Friedman February 9, 2021). Some commentators even count out democracy completely in favor of computational methods: “Where representative democracy fails, algorithms will soon take over the authority of the state” (Meckel March 6, 2020). If, in the words of Thomas Thiel, it was dictators who “reaped the harvest of the Twitter and Facebook revolution in Arab countries” (October 5, 2016), then right-wing populists reaped the harvest of the digital data collection in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In this case, the real power structures of a new public sphere were revealed, in which old doubts in democracy were recast. However, these doubts already formed part of the repertoire of democracy criticism long before the advent of digitization: the fear of the manipulation of voters, the relationship of truth and politics, the undermining of the acceptance of

democratic representation. The fear of manipulation is as old as democracy itself. Plato dismissed democracy as “theatrocracy,“ because in his view the masses could be swayed by rhetoric in the same way as a theater audience (Rebentisch 2011: 4). As for truth and politics, as far back as 1967, Hannah Arendt was under no illusions. Neither did she think that anyone else was: “No-one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other, and no one, as far as I know, has ever counted truthfulness among the political vir­tues. Lies have always been regarded as necessary and justifiable tools not only of the politician’s or the demagogue’s but also of the statesman’s trade” (1977: 227). Thirdly, the fact that liberal representative democracy has not proven to be unrivaled since the end of the Cold War and that it has not brought about the End of History (Fukuyama 1992), and that there are in fact signs of fatigue in democratic institutions, resulting in an era of post-democracy (Crouch 2004), is a diagnosis that predates the popularization of digital media. Even without the impact of the latter, it can be plausibly explained by the impact of neoliberal economic trends on the party landscape. Jonas Aaron Lecointe  139

Contrary to lines of argumentation that see digitization either as a panacea to societal problems, or as a danger to democracy, researchers on the relationship of digitization and democracy argue that we need to move away from the technological determinism on which both schools of thought are based. They note that since the 1990s, an “Internet-realist perspective has formed that puts forward neither utopian, nor dystopian scenarios and assumptions about the development of this relationship” (Borucki/ Marschall/Michels 2020: 361), but which instead “assumes ambivalence in terms of the effects” (Kneuer 2017: 505). These researchers believe that we should not “prematurely declare presumed effects, in the sense of digitization causes this or that” (Grimm/Zöllner 2020: 7). Instead, they believe that the consequences of digitization should be understood in a contingent manner, i.e., affected by technological developments, but not determined by them. Digitization now affects almost all areas of life, but it is not a force of nature. To allow the democratic potential of digitization to unfold, we need a new understanding of democratic order that goes beyond the traditional liberal model. The Salons of the Republic are a valuable source of inspiration for this. The Salons of the Republic But what is the relationship between an architectural proposal for a network of public spaces for the purposes of democratic dialogue, and an attempt at an elaboration on the digital public sphere? First, the concept of digitality is “not just limited to digital media, but appears everywhere as a relational concept, changing the scope in terms of options for many materials and actors” (Stalder 2016: 19). Digital technologies are penetrating the analog world via smartphones, surveillance technologies, and sensors. Their use in design and architecture is changing the built environ140

ment and its entire infrastructure. Moreover, the necessity of new spaces for democratic dialogue is being conveyed particularly in the reception of digital media. “Because digitization […] itself continues to perpetuate a digital view of the world and ever clearer patterns are emerging in the pools of data, of which society itself is unaware without the tools for digital insights, society is being driven to scrutinize itself in different ways and more vehemently.“ (Berg/Rakowski/Thiel 2020: 177) This also applies to debate culture, because “language development and use are subject to constant monitoring and ongoing evaluation in the context of modern forms of communication” (Bermes 2019: 36). The online and offline dichotomy proves to be unproductive, if not completely deceptive, if one looks at how far advanced the digital view of the analog world has become. Digitization should not see analog and digital as spheres that are completely separated from one another. By the same token, the consideration of a plan of architectural spaces for a democratic public sphere would be incomplete if it did not consider the virtual space of a digital public that is not virtual at all but very real indeed. The Salons of the Republic are hubs that bridge the divide between architectural and digital spaces. The concept of the salon recalls a development that Jürgen Habermas described in his habilitation thesis as the “structural transformation of the public sphere” (Habermas 1989). Today, the diagnosis of a more recent digital structural transformation to the public sphere has largely been accepted, of which at least the essential features will be outlined below. And although the concept of the republic (see May in this volume) has lost much of its edge in political theory amidst the triumph of liberalism (Thiel/Volk 2016: 9), Thorsten Thiel attributes

a particular descriptive force to the republican perspective for the democracy-theoretical implications of digitization, which I would then like to trace briefly. I close with commentary on the perceived change of debate culture and the concern that cross-milieu dialogs are becoming impossible as a result of digital technologies and the emergence of filter bubbles and echo chambers. The Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere For Habermas, the salon is the figure of transition from a representative public sphere of the feudal world to the bourgeois public sphere of modernity (Habermas 1989: 27 ff.). The former “was not constituted as a social realm,” but consisted solely in the public representation of the power. (Ibid.: 7) Only the bourgeois public sphere establishes itself in the eighteenth century in opposition to public power, doing so in the city’s salons (in contrast to the public sphere of the court) as a literary public sphere, as an audience of new media products – of the press, journals, the novel. The structural transformation of the public sphere describes a re-ordering of the public and private spheres: “Within the realm that was the preserve of private people we therefore distinguish again between private and public spheres. The private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense […]; embedded within it was the family with its interior domain (Intimsphäre).” (Ibid.: 30) Today, the development of a public sphere is again presenting questions for the relationship between the public and private sphere: In spatial terms, the digital public sphere can no longer be separated from the private sphere – the “personal computer” is potentially always online and, given its fusion with the cellphone, it can now scarcely be separated from individuals themselves. For its part, the digital public sphere is now embedded within the interior domain.

This restructuring goes hand in hand with a reformation of the media landscape that challenges the image of a unified, undivided public space that was “cemented by capital-intensive media technology” in the twentieth century: “Until the turn of the millennium, the mass media in western democracies had an almost unchallenged monopolist position in the public sphere. They made decisions over relevancy and irrelevancy of actors, ideas, and programs, and in doing so shaped the political reality that was experienced via the media.” (Hofmann 2019a: 49) The technological upheaval caused by digital media has caused the boundaries of this traditional division of roles to become blurred: user-based platforms allow the “independent creation of the public sphere through the posting, commenting and sharing of digital content” (Thimm 2017a: 44) and as such are promoting “the transformation of a once passive recipient audience into a civil society that intervenes in a discursive way” (Hofmann 2019b: 41). In communication science terms, this change can be described as a transformation from a mass media one-to-many communication to a form of many-to-many communication (Antić, 2017: 153). The increased significance of social media such as Facebook and Twitter in particular has led to a “platformization” (Helmond 2015) of these sites. By providing the main access routes to the content of public discourse, these services now play a role analogous to Google’s position in search engines or Amazon’s in online shopping. By personalizing the supply of information, as is common with these platforms due to the practice of following, critics believe the services are threatening to take over the role of gatekeeper from traditional media and moreover to contribute to the fragmentation of the digital public sphere through algorithmic filtering. Instead, studies reveal a “different dynamic to the creation of the public sphere” Jonas Aaron Lecointe  141

(Thimm 2017: 46), representing more of a pluralization than a decline: seen in this light, the media logic of the platforms themselves (e.g., hashtags, retweets, Facebook groups, forums) promotes the creation of polymedial “mini-publics” that incorporate the traditional media, rather than replacing it “There would be nothing more wrong than underestimating the power of these smaller groups to influence society. Many of these digital ‘mini-publics’ draw on traditional media to the extent that they create a polymedial space via cross-references to other media. This space receives greater attention, without altering the quality of its own discourse” (Thimm 2017b: 56). Jürgen Habermas also shares the concerns about the fragmenting effect of the digital public sphere. But he also recognizes democratic potential in the Internet communication of the World Wide Web, “by allowing the reoccupation of interactive and deliberative elements in an unregulated exchange between partners who interact virtually, but on an equal basis” (Habermas 2008: 161). Outside of digitization debates, too, the call for Habermasian-style deliberative concepts of democracy is becoming more and more vocal. A New Understanding of Democracy In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of October 26, 2020, the political scientist Herfried Münkler, historian Hans Walter Hütter and the director of the German Architecture Museum Peter Cachola Schmal proposed the construction of a “House of Democracy” on St Paul’s Square in Frankfurt am Main. The authors believed that this would make up for the commemorative inferiority of the 70- yearold St Paul’s Church, the site of the National Assembly and the cradle of the basic rights of the German people. The trio argued in their piece that the inadequacy of the historical location was due to its reconstruction in 1948: 142

“As a place of remembrance, it has neither aesthetic evidence, nor an aura that takes visitors back into the past,” (Hütter/Münkler/Schmal October 26, 2020), the authors lamented. The pending refurbishment of the building, they argued, should be used as an opportunity not just to return to the church its aura of a “modern memorial to democracy,” but also to expand its role to make the church a “place of learning and communication” – very much in line with a “reflexive-deliberative democracy.” Political scientists Patrizia Nanz and Claus Leggewie responded to the proposal in the Frankfurter Rundschau of December 1, 2020, warning of an “antiquarian tilt” to a “museum-like visualization of German democratic history” (December 1, 2020) that they saw in the proposal of their previous speakers. In the view of Nanz and Leggewie, a “House of Democracy” should instead function as a forum for citizen participation, which the pair had suggested be a fourth power of the state in their book Die Konsultative (The Consultative) (Leggewie, Nanz 2016). They quickly dispense with the attribute “reflexive,” instead calling for “a strengthening of deliberative democracy, that is discussion of arguments, dialogue and the exchange of views, the patient development of compromise, the laborious achievement of consensus through civilized argument.” (Leggewie/Nanz 2020) However, on one point, all five authors seem to agree: the liberal model no longer meets the needs of a contemporary democracy. Unlike liberal democratic theory, which guarantees the liberty of the individual via negative rights in the sense of non-intervention by the state, thereby guaranteeing the “freedom of isolation from the polity” (Ottmann 2006: 318), deliberative democracy sees its ideal in participation in the polity through “an argumentative, deliberative style of con-

sultation focused on understanding” (Schmidt 2010: 237). Both perspectives present weaknesses for Thorsten Thiel, if the idea is to “capture and evaluate the resulting societal changes in the digital structural shift” (Thiel 2017a: 194). He attributes this ability to the republican theory of democracy in particular, which he believes possesses particular intuition for (1) the power relations in the digital, (2) the particular role of anonymity and (3) the significance of the expansion of options for forming a countervailing power. (1) In contrast to the liberal perspective, the republican concept of liberty does not formulate freedom as being pre-political, but sees the polity as its precondition. Hannah Arendt views the situation as follows: “Men can only be free with reference to one another, only, that is, in the fields of politics and of the things they do,” because “[w]here communal existence is not organized politically […] it is not freedom, but force of circumstance and self-interest that bind men together” (Arendt 1961: 191). Republicanism counters the liberal concept of freedom as non-intervention, with that of freedom as not being controlled, which protects against “the potential to arbitrarily implement a position” (Thiel 2017a: 196). Applied to the discussion over surveillance, data collection and the formation of profiles by corporations in the digital public sphere, the republican perspective allows for more fundamental criticism of “monitoring and control options”: While liberalism sees the solution as permitting the processing of data only if voluntary consent has been granted, republicanism is sensitive to implicit relationships of compulsion and control: “In the end, behind voluntary consent is very often the indirect compulsion to receive the necessary access to a privatized public sphere” (ibid.: 198) (2) In the same vein, republican theory is suitable for defending an element that is not

just closely related to the digital structural shift, but which has also “long become a de facto condition of modern societies” (Ibid.: 197): anonymity. “By nature of its mediation – as expressed by IP addresses, for instance – digital communication is always pseudonymous to a certain extent. The spatial freedom afforded by digitality and the temporal asynchrony strengthen this impression even further.” (Ibid.: 206) This feature of digital communication is a problem for deliberative democratic theories, because “the personal commitment to arguments is firmly embedded within them” (Thiel 2017b: 157). In the public debate, too, calls for an obligation to use real names are often heard. However, the potential for political activism that anonymity offers particularly for marginalized groups is overlooked by this view: “Precisely because an anonymous situation abstracts from the person, from power and dependencies, anonymity and anonymization can promote the formation of a countervailing power.” (Thiel 2017a: 207) In contrast to liberalism, which “advocates only for formal access rights,” this potential cannot be irrelevant to republicanism, as the latter is interested in “how a political order produces subjects capable of opinion and articulation” (ibid.: 201). (3) The great significance that republicanism attributes to opposition and countervailing power is also rooted in this interest. While the significance of opposition may seem intuitive for democracy, its practice is coming under increasing pressure in an age of post-national interdependencies, a post-democratic emphasis on the executive and the rise of authoritarian regimes (Thiel 2015: 273–275). To this corresponds a “marginal position of the principle of opposition” (ibid.: 277) in democratic theory. While opposition in the liberal sense is understood chiefly in a parliamentarian way and its positive effects are limited to its function as Jonas Aaron Lecointe  143

a means of “limiting power,” as a “watchdog for correction and control” or for promoting “competition for votes,” deliberative theory provides for greater involvement by citizens. But even here, the role of opposition is limited, to its “advisory quality.” Rational discourse calls for “self-discipline” and opposition needs to “react insightfully to counterarguments, in order to demonstrate integrability” (ibid.: 280). Republican theory places the “empowerment of citizens and the activity resulting from the empowerment” above the significance of suffrage and rational decision-making. (Ibid.: 286) As republicanism is not concerned that “the results of public processes of understandings outweigh all other considerations,” let alone that “a common will is formed,” because republicanism “contrasts a range of views and positions […] with the uniformity of political decisions” and because it “[recognizes] the significance of public confrontation” in “creating a performative dynamic, an unrest that prevents the closure of the political system” (ibid.: 287), republicanism is also able to identify and evaluate as such forms of countervailing power that have been created by digitization, both in campaigns such as #aufschrei or #BlackLivesMatter, in forms of protest such as Indignados or Occupy Wall Street and in civil disobedience such as hacking, DDoS attacks, and leaking (Thiel 2017a: 202ff.). A Comment on Debate Culture In spite of all the positive potential aspects that digitization offers for democracy, they cannot overshadow the perception that debate culture has changed and is becoming marked by incivility and emotionality (Kümpel/Rieger 2019: 5) and is being promoted by digital media in this form, thereby contributing to the polarization of society. The filter bubble and echo chamber concepts are seen to symbolize the digital contribution to this trend. The terms refer to the fact that users on digital platforms 144

increasingly find themselves confronted with political content that confirms their own opinion, because of the algorithmic selection of information. Although there are more and more studies about the topic, to date there has been little cross-platform empirical proof, let alone evidence of a change compared to traditional media consumption (Fletcher/Nielsen 2017). “The truth of the matter,” conclude Bentivenga and Artieri, “is that the phenomenon has been considerably overestimated so much so as to overshadow other questions […]”(2020: 7). Indeed, digitization is contributing to a change in debate culture: it generates “increased visibility and public access to debates and discourse” (Kümpel/Rieger 2019), which is associated with the “simplified option for rapidly distributing content” (Kümpel/Rieger 2019: 13) and the motivational aspect of commenting (Ibid), the goal of which normally does not lie with the debate itself, but in letting out of pent-up emotions. It is questionable to what extent the aspect of anonymity contributes to immoral behavior (ibid.: 14), because, as Caja Thimm notes, “many far-right, xenophobic and racist posts were published under real names during the refugee crisis (2017b: 52). Some of the most important threats to an open, cross-milieu debate culture can be found in incivility and the phenomenon of hate speech. In a study from the Jena-based Institute for Democracy and Civil Society, 54 percent of those surveyed said they expressed their political opinion more rarely online as a reaction to (potential) hate speech (Geschke et al.: 28). The solution for this problem should not be sought in some form of technical solutionism. It also should not be diverted by phoney debates about a misunderstood sense of freedom of speech in the tilting at the windmills of “political correctness” and “cancel culture.” This is because it is not plausible to “see free

speech as the right of each and every individual to say whatever he or she wants regardless of its more general effects on the rights of others” (Bellamy 2013: 138). If the recognition that digitization is not a phenomenon external to democracy that either aides or damages it or predetermines its progress in other ways, but that it is a product contingent on the sociological, economic, technological, and political configuration of late modernity (Hofmann 2019b: 29ff.) – if this insight has any value at all, it is that the unfolding of the democratic potential of this development can only be achieved by a strong civil society that does not vilify protest and dissent as mechanisms of exclusion, but promotes these wherever they stand against hate speech and thereby contribute to an actual pluralization of positions.

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Sandra Speer

PLACES OF DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS AS SALONS OF THE REPUBLIC? Even before covid, far-reaching challenges were confronting our society. The digital revolution is not only forcing a technological and economic transformation, it is also raising questions about democracy and liberty. The underlying conditions of our interactions are fundamentally changing. The digital transformation is inextricably interlinked with issues such as the transport and energy revolution, and indeed with all kinds of policy areas in our society. The digital transformation itself demands debates across different policy areas.

On the one hand, disenchantment with politics is not new. On the other hand, more and more people want to have their say in shaping future developments – particularly where their immediate social environment and therefore their own quality of life is concerned. Since the 1990s, civic participation in Germany has developed in a dynamic fashion at municipal, state, and federal levels, in a similar way to many other OECD countries. A wide range of formats, platforms, and spaces are used to involve citizens in identifying problems and developing solutions. Innovations from the public sector are also increasingly designed in a way that encourages participation. One recent example is the Covid-19 hackathon from the German Federal Government called “#WirVersusVirus”, in which over 23,000 people participated. Programmers, designers, creators, problem solvers, and socially engaged citizens discussed issues online over two days and developed functioning prototypes. Decision-makers at both political and administrative levels see many benefits to this and are designing collaboration in a way that more and more explicitly involves interested citizens and provides them with greater 146

opportunities for participation. Particularly at the municipal level, forms of civic participation that range from deliberative processes to citizen budgets are taking on greater significance, with the aim of increasing the likelihood that balanced and consensus-driven solutions will be developed. Secondly, public participation is intended to improve the quality of decisions and their acceptance by integrating the knowledge of many affected individuals and interested parties. Thirdly, trust in democratic decision-making and ultimately in politics might be increased (Nanz/Fritsche 2012). This essay will discuss various “places” for innovations, i.e., spaces that create opportunities for parties with various methods and opportunities for participation. These places are usually physical rooms that focus on openness and transparency in their design, giving them the character of modern salons. Innovation Labs Laboratories are places for discovery and learning via experiments. “Labs” in the broader sense are characterized by their open mentality in terms of their favored approaches and methods of operation. However, they are initiated and established in different contexts and for varying purposes. Many large-scale

companies launch “innovation labs,” thereby creating a space for innovation processes and pathways for the digital transformation separate from everyday operations (Stiefel/ Rief 2019). Innovation labs frequently stand out thanks to their attractively designed creative spaces, often as bright and colorful as kindergartens creating an atmosphere that inspires curiosity and experimentation, as well as encouraging users to linger. Instead of recalling knowledge acquired in long educational pathways, these rooms systematically return users to child-like play environments, allowing for experiments and tests of new concepts. Modular and flexible room elements can be freely moved around the room, allowing the lab to be transformed in a matter of minutes, e.g., from a lounge to a conference room. This feature allows these types of rooms to be used for all kinds of things: from strategy meetings, through to design workshops and yoga classes. Bigger labs can even be used for bar camps and hackathons. The larger labs are made up of different zones that separate open and closed collaborative working areas from communication spaces. In general, these rooms extol the virtue that architecture and physical-spatial structures provide a significant component of success when working together. Innovation labs usually take user-centric approaches. Objects such as Lego, figurines, or craft materials are used to prototype ideas, with the support of design thinking (Plattner et al. 2016). In addition to clients, users are subjected to intensive study and are involved at various stages in the innovation process. The aim of actively bringing future users into the design process, and actively involving them in the concept and testing phase for products, is to minimize the risk of mistakes.

In large companies, accelerators are often connected to innovation labs. These accelerators organize the practical side of partnerships with start-ups, thereby facilitating the bidirectional exchange of innovations. In both cases, public dialogue events are also often organized jointly with entrepreneurs. The engagement often remains within the corporate world, or expands beyond this into academia by involving researchers or students – such as in the case of start-ups. Co-working Spaces and Fablabs When it comes to start-ups, the garage still often serves as the mythical image that symbolizes the place where it all began. This may have always tended to be more applicable to the United States than Germany. Nowadays, private and publicly-supported co-working spaces have been opened as creative spaces for experimentation that invite users to meet and linger (Bundesverband Coworking 2021). Conversations between self-employed individuals in particular have the power to bring them out of the isolation of their “garage,” inviting them to network and collaborate. Behind co-working spaces is the idea of a community. Moreover, co-working spaces have often become hubs for a wide range of people to meet and to advance the development of a city or a neighborhood (e.g., Amsterdam Smart City 2021). Under this model, local policy discussions are no longer held primarily in a business atmosphere, but in one that resembles more of a coffee shop. These environments are not just hubs for digital mavericks. They also bring together real-world experiences and are locations for social mixing and debates – traditional strengths of a café with salon-like characteristics. Another form of creative collaboration takes place in “fablabs” (an abbreviation of fabrication laboratory) and “makerspaces,” which are sometimes attached to co-working Sandra Speer  147

spaces. These spaces serve as open workshops for tech-savvy private individuals and selfemployed people who want to take advantage of modern production methods and requisite equipment. These types of spaces are created both under private initiatives and with public support, with the aim of promoting access to education and innovation. Fablabs are typically found on university campuses. People can visit them to find academic expertise that is brought from research into a makerspace or is applied to develop prototypes. In both formats, sustainability issues and the development of solutions for them are particular focuses for discussion (Fab Lab Barcelona 2021; BMBF 2021). The maker movement attracts school students as much as start-up founders, business­people, students, and academics. Discussions in these types of labs are of a more informal nature. However, they also involve organizing and practicing the active production and transfer of knowledge to connect research with real life. Government Labs Innovation labs in large corporations serve as role models for the innovation labs of public authorities that are popping up all around the world, known as “government labs” or “public sector labs.” These aim to provide a valuable contribution to the transformation in politics and public administration and provide opportunities for a play-like environment that promotes experience, discovery, and learning (OECD 2021). In Germany, several innovation labs in cities such as Berlin and Cologne are dedicated to advancing developments in the public sector and to shaping and accelerating the digitization of public administration in particular. As with innovation labs in general, the focus is placed on the user-centric design of services by using tools such as customer journeys and design thinking. Digitization therefore means far more than just changing channels. It refers to seizing the opportunity to think across the boundaries 148

between policy areas and to redesign administrative services for citizens or companies in a user-centric way. Government labs and agile working methods change the culture of public administration, breaking up mentalities of limited responsibility and the firmly entrenched line management approach. They drive changes in working methods that go well beyond the lab. Services that are particularly suited to being developed in government labs include extra services from public authorities, such as the design of a public space, a new library concept, or services that will be offered online in future. However, government labs can also be used in strategic processes for planning and similar purposes. As in business contexts, design thinking in government labs relies on a positive, can-do troubleshooting atmosphere. Design thinking can help to resolve conflict on a step-by-step basis and is therefore suited to supporting challenging consensus-seeking approaches and providing positive input – which can be particularly useful for tackling social problems. It is true that government labs can improve political decision-making processes and services as well as strengthen the individual and collective ability to act through their approach to integrating knowledge. However, they are definitely not substitutes for discussions of values. Not every problem can be resolved quickly and easily. Evaluations of the approaches taken by government labs and potential difficulties are still pending. There is potential for them to involve academia and business to an even greater extent, as well as to combine processes for civic participation. Real-world Laboratories Partnerships between politics and academia have a long tradition in the form of political consulting. However, the involvement of those

who are directly affected by decisions is a more recent phenomenon. “Real-world laboratories” are a form of cooperation and research that involve civil society. Real-world laboratories are often referred to by names such as “living labs,” “innovation spaces,” or real life experiments.” The aim of real-world laboratories is to spark transformation in defined geographic units, such as sustainable development in specific areas such as mobility, tourism, planning, energy, and the integration of refugees. They involve real-life experiments with participatory elements. Schäpke et al. (2018) list four characteristics that real-world laboratories need to fulfill. First, they need to make a contribution towards a transformation in sustainability. Second, they involve experimentation. Third, their main research method is characterized by a trans-disciplinary approach. Finally, their end goal is a societal process of learning and reflection. The extent to which a fifth criterion – on the long-term orientation, scalability, and transferability of the work in real-world laboratories – needs to be met is fiercely debated. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) defines real-world laboratories as “testing areas for innovation and regulation” (BMWi 2019: 7). Alternatively, real-world laboratories primarily take a social science approach and directly involve civil society to seek solutions to societal challenges and transformational processes. Real-world laboratories may include various forms of participation, depending on the complexity of the arrangements being facilitated. The participation continuum can range from information, consultation, cooperation, and collaboration, through to empowerment (Meyer-Soylu et al. 2016). This form of cooperation largely takes place in the field, which means that cities or neighborhoods are the actual testbeds for aspects that include the digital transformation of our

society and thus the transformation of our environments in the narrower sense. However, a real-world laboratory cannot exist without informal meetings and official talks between the stakeholders. A real-world laboratory may also include open roundtables with stakeholders, as well as workshops and idea competitions. The laboratory thus includes both elements that are tested in a defined urban environment or district, and spaces for dialogue between stakeholders and other interested parties. These spaces are designed to facilitate active participation that is possible via other means, but in a less representative way. For example, people’s opinions are normally represented mainly only by “organized” civil society at higher levels, such as at state and federal level. Real-world laboratories are test laboratories for society and strengthen interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary work in physical solution spaces. They promote societal discourse and offer a town the opportunity to try things out together. But real-world laboratories also need to face the criticism that specific stakeholder groups may be strengthened as a result of co-production (Cooke/Kohtari 2001; Bovaird 2007). Outlook The labs presented here are embedded in completely different contexts. This means that their purposes are difficult to define and conceptualize. They have been discussed here only in broad terms. In the laboratory approaches that have been outlined, discourse takes place mainly at the practical level – meaning that it is design-based, rather than evidence-based. This creates decentralized diversity and encourages disruptive ideas in an increasingly disruptive world.¹ It is precisely this aspect that is seen as an opportunity for system innovations as a core part of a sustainable transformation (Schneidewind/Scheck 2013). Sandra Speer  149

From the perspective of participatory research, the value of these kinds of processes can be analyzed using three questions: Who is involved, with what are participants involved, and how are they involved? Innovation laboratories are primarily located in companies and are used to involve citizens to provide the user perspective on future products and services. Co-working spaces can be locations for dialogue in the format of a salon or café. Fablabs are usually workshops that include discussions with academia. Government labs, by contrast, are usually situated inside public authorities and involve or invite citizens on a case-by-case basis to introduce their ideas and proposals. Real-world laboratories can be designed jointly by researchers, politicians and public servants, companies, and civil society. Measured in terms of participation by all four of these groups, the real-world laboratory approach is the most comprehensive. In sum, there is a growing need for spaces for communication and collaboration at the crossroads of technology and society. A commonality across all labs is that the discourses taking place within them is driven by the quest for solutions to current problems. It is this fact that inspires participants to develop innovations. There are a broad and diverse ranges of ways for involving citizens in the process of fostering innovation. First, there are more and more projects and initiatives that explicitly ask for input from ordinary people as contributions to research. Second, individuals are being involved at various stages of the design and decision-making undertaken by politicians and public servants – well beyond the labs discussed here (Nanz/Fritsche 2012). A range of spaces for innovations were outlined here. These may sometimes be located next to each other in a town or municipality, or they may be established as standalone solutions. In all examples, different perspectives are 150

discussed and integrated. The aim is for the focus to be placed on the post-digital needs of citizens, rather than on technological feasibility (Graham 2018). To strengthen innovative solution-finding processes further, the “Quadruple Helix” – representing collaboration by academia, business, politicians, and public servants, as well as the public itself – needs to be practiced more strongly (Carayannis/Campbell 2009). This cannot just happen through a form of lab that would need to cover all potential fields and issues – it could be more promising to have labs with a narrower focus. Nevertheless, a plea is being issued here for greater physical proximity and connectivity, for a space full of opportunities where experiments can take place together. Even if this space needs to initially remain a virtual home for discourse, networking, and collaboration, actual physical spaces are sure to follow at a later date. The continued development of communication spaces for future debates in and across the political, research, civil society, and business sectors is always necessary for the sake of the common good, in light of new and complex political challenges. Given their geographical location and symbolic significance, Berlin and Frankfurt would be ideal locations to implement the plans presented in this book for multi-perspective, open labs that cut across policy areas – for places of democratic innovations as Salons of the Republic.

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Marion Kamphans

STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY THROUGH INTERACTION – Inspirations from New Museum Work

The Salons of the Republic are intended to be places where people can meet and converse with those who they would not normally come across. The hope behind initiating a social practice that cuts across group and socioeconomic lines is that this will contribute to civic education and in turn to the strengthening of democracy, precisely because the Salons of the Republic provide a communication space for a diverse public. The aim is to promote discussion of political positions and the organization of political activities. In the following essay, the opportunities for sociopolitical development arising from inclusive publics will be outlined, using the example of innovative museum work. The transferability of corresponding concepts to the idea of the Salons of the Republic will also be explored.

Cultural Education for Everyone – Museums in a Transformation Process For centuries, museums have served as miniature treasure troves for the world (Donecker 2013: 7), because they collect and display everyday, ordinary, special, and scandalous objects from art, culture, nature, technology, society, and the media. Museums are places that present all kinds of objects and topics, while simultaneously providing a potential interpretation of their cultural significance. They teach, research, preserve, impart –they inform their users and communicate with them, inspiring them to learn, while also irritating and entertaining them – and no longer merely physically, but digitally as well. This is the conventional understanding of how museums fulfill their educational mandate. Museums are very popular in Germany, but their visitor composition reveals a clear social selectivity. More than 117 million people visited a museum in 2018, viewing exhibitions and collections in social history, technology, natural history, and art museums, as well as other exhibition halls (Deutscher Museums152

bund 2020: 12–17). With this large number of visits, museums rank extremely highly in the art and cultural scene. But their cultural offerings also still reach only a relatively homogeneous group – it is mainly people with higher educational qualifications from better socioeconomic backgrounds who walk through the doors of these educational institutions several times per year (Wegner 2011; 2016).¹ For museums, it remains a challenge to appeal to new target groups and to attract them to their cultural offerings. Particularly underrepresented groups amongst museum visitors include old and young people, people with disabilities, less well-educated and socially disadvantaged people, and people with migrant backgrounds. For these groups, museums tend to be somewhat “foreign” places from a high culture that is unfamiliar to them, or meeting points for an educated audience who can knowledgeably walk through museum halls with the correct demeanor. The debate over a more socially inclusive museum – in the sense of allowing cultural education for everyone – is not a new one. For

as long as they have existed, museums have had to consider how they can meet the external expectations placed upon them in terms of their work and objectives. A look at their history confirms this. But even if museums have learned how to expand their educational mandate over recent decades and how they can actively appeal to visitors, it has taken a long time for the now commonly understood understanding of museums as places for imparting knowledge to be accepted. An initial attempt to make “temple-like” museums accessible to a wider audience and democratize them was made in Germany after the French Revolution, in the period between 1830 and 1890. Under the Federal German education reforms in the 1960s and 1970s, the aim was for museums to ultimately become “places of learning” and for an emphasis to be placed on their educational work with visitors. This model was based on cognitive learning theories, which assumed that museum knowledge only needed to be structured well enough and broken down into the correct doses for it to enter the heads of museum visitors (Donecker 2013: 7–10).² Various opinions, each with their own particular emphases, on how comprehensive the model of a museum as a communicative space should be were fiercely debated. The views ranged from Joseph Beuys’s idea of museum being a place for a “permanent conference,” through to the idea that a museum should include “visitor-focused experiential content” and promote the development and skills of visitors, not least by allowing them to experience objects with the senses and by encouraging in-depth discussions with others (Wittgens 2005: 18–20). Only in the 1990s did the concept of the “visitor-focused museum” gain acceptance, with the associated understanding of museum-

based cultural work being based on a constructivist concept of imparting knowledge. This meant focusing more heavily on the exising knowledge and interests of visitors. Since this time, museums have focused more on interaction than teaching, using communicative strategies to better explain the contexts of artistic objects (Donecker 2013: 7–10). Nevertheless, in spite of all attempts by museums to facilitate more comprehensive participation by different groups, museum visits remain socially stratified. The debate over a museum for everyone is needed now more than ever, both because social cohesion is endangered by the “dynam­ ics of societal disintegration” (Heitmeyer 2018: 146–158) and because the expectations for inclusive participation have grown. These expectations are being directed towards museums and exhibition halls. The conflict researcher and sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer links both objective restrictions on societal participation and the lack of recognition with the concept of dynamics of societal disintegration. Both levels, objective and subjective, can be interpreted in a more differentiated form via three different dimensions (Heitmeyer 2018: 149): In the sociostructural dimension, the emphasis is placed on participation in material and cultural terms, such as participation in work, education, housing, and culture. In the institutional-participatory dimension, the opportunities for participation are understood in terms of public and political processes relating to opinion formation. These could include participation in political activities such as elections, through to formats for citizen participation. The third dimension describes how individuals can actively create their own support and social belonging. In other words: according to Heitmeyer, the stated dynamic of societal disintegration causes deprivation Marion Kamphans  153

in hierarchical, moral, and emotional recognition. This is associated with a strengthening of authoritarian temptations. Along with this fragility of social cohesion, we also see broad consensus on the increased demands and expectations at the socioethical level that are connected with concepts such as “inclusion” and “participation.” These demands, as already indicated above, are being placed on educational institutions such as museums. Concepts for a Social Function of Museums – “Third Places” and “Social Infrastructure” In the following, I will present two-concepts of “third places” and “social infrastructure” which could both be instructive for expanding the traditional cultural and educational mandate of museums even more strongly than currently, including beyond museum walls. Both concepts aim to give exhibition halls a “more active” role than previously in a city’s sociopolitical and sociospatial structure. The thematic connection to the Salons of the Republic becomes apparent at this point, as these are intended to be places for cross-milieu social interaction, rather than a planned or structured program. Both museums that follow these concepts and the Salons of the Republic tend to view themselves more as spaces for chance encounters, the nature and success of which depends on the interests and needs of these people, and on the way they adopt and use the space. The idea of designing museums as “third places” was inspired by the views of the US urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg (1999; 2001), who at the end of the 1980s saw American society as being at risk from increasing individualization, loneliness, and isolation. He believed this was being made worse by the increasing disintegration of urban infrastructure. To counteract these trends, Oldenburg’s 154

idea was to create what are known as “third places” in public spaces. In these third places, Oldenburg’s vision was that it should be possible for anyone to come into conversation with strangers – with no great hurdles and in a relaxed atmosphere – including and specifically with people who came from different sociostructural and sociocultural backgrounds. Under his concept, third places are spaces that are situated in terms of atmosphere somewhere between private dwellings (“first place”) and the workplace (“second place”). According to Oldenburg, third places would include public venues characterized by informal communication where people enjoyed spending time. These spaces include cafes, bookstores, bars, shops of all kinds, as well as playgrounds, parks, libraries, and of course museums. Seen in this light, the Salons of the Republic would serve as extremely diversified and thus versatile “third places,” capable of housing a very broad range of social activities, the range and extent of which may not yet even be fully appreciated. The concept of “social infrastructure,” from the American sociologist Eric Klinenberg, follows on from the concept of “third places.” In his book Palaces for the People (2018), he sees public venues as sites of functioning social infrastructure where people can linger and interact across group boundaries. Public venues can include kindergartens, theaters, schools, libraries, hairdressing salons, allotment gardens, and gyms, as well as juice shops, bars, and restaurants. They can be places where people meet to swap news and chat, which would also include museums, although Klinenberg does not mention them explicitly (Wise 2019: 11). Wherever the structure of functioning social infrastructure is successful, the deeper the feeling of community there is and the greater the readiness to render assis-

tance. The social capital of individuals grows, but so does that of the group (Klinenberg 2018). A hallmark of functioning social infrastructure is that people in a neighborhood act in a trusting way with each other because they know one another. Accordingly, functioning social infrastructure not only stabilizes democratic societies by creating an alternative culture to the dynamic of societal disintegration, it can – if people in a community are well connected with one another and are able to communicate well with each other even in times of crisis – even protect and save human lives. Klinenberg came to this insight in his study on networks and neighborhoods during Chicago’s “killer summer” in July 1995. The US city was experiencing a massive, weeklong heatwave at the time, resulting in 500 to 700 people dying within just a few days. Thousands of people suffering dehydration were admitted to local hospitals. A disproportionately large number of black, socially disadvantaged, and older people did not survive the heat. Nevertheless, the “selectivity of death” (Klinenberg 1997) did not affect all poverty-affected groups equally: the Hispanic population saw only a few deaths. The reason was that this group had taken ownership of their neighborhoods earlier than others, strengthening their personal networks and investing in social connections with family, friends, and acquaintances. During the heatwave, Hispanics benefited from this network of personal connections – they could take advantage of the mutual assistance provided by the community (Klinenberg 1997). The heatwave is certainly an extreme example of the impact of social infrastructure. However, the desired effects can normally be seen in less dramatic trends. A neighborhood characterized by the presence of more comprehensive social capital can trigger a wide

range of positive developments. If people in a social environment are trusting of one another, providing mutual support or simply having fun together and developing traditions (e.g., celebrating common festivals), a climate is created in which a positive sense of belonging develops. Self-efficacy is also strengthened by successful involvement in the community. Additionally, the educational aspirations of young people are able to be supported through the interaction with and inside the heterogeneous environments. However, the transferability of the desired effects of social capital to the Salons of the Republic will only happen if we allow the infrastructure to develop in a social way. It is easy to imagine various segments of the population developing and following their own interests when using these locations. But if social capital is to form not just within groups of similar individuals (bonding), but cross-milieu social capital (bridging) is to be generated (Putnam 2000), there need to be support services that provide intervention, moderation and – in the case of conflicts over use – mediation. Museums in Cultural and Social Work When considering the social function of museums, the question is whether museum creators can place their role somewhere on the spectrum of the concepts listed above, and whether they even want to do so. Discussions in German-speaking countries are primarily concerned with how museums can successfully appeal to target groups that have tended to stay away from museums, under the model of an inclusive museum (Kollar 2020). By engaging in such discussions, museum creators are in many ways still interpreting their mandate in a more traditional sense, despite there already being calls for the future approach of museums to include a stronger commitment to action in the social space (Mandel 2020). Marion Kamphans  155

The museum as a social hub, where only the room is planned, not the program, would be at the other end of the spectrum in terms of the identity of a contemporary museum. Or in other words: the aim of a museum would, under the community-forming ideas of the concepts listed above, provide a space in which the various groups in the social environment could meet and do whatever they wanted. Of course, this would be linked with the hope that this would – in some kind of form – inspire interest in the cultural holdings of the museum in question. A vivid and prominent example of this is “The Next Level” project from the ARoS Aarhus art museum in Aarhus, Denmark, which sees itself as a “social platform,” i.e., as a venue for gatherings that offers visitors both physical and digital spaces whether they can meet and enter into conversation, independently of a visit to the museum. With “The Next Level” project,³ the art museum is also communicating a far-reaching vision for how it sees its cultural work in the future: art institutions should not just reflect and interpret what is happening in the world. They should also take on social responsibility and participate in society. Another variation of a museum project which considers the social environment involves residents of a neighborhood as participants in a production for the exhibition content. This brings its own particular charm when the task is to tell the joint history of the neighborhood and its residents. Examples of this approach includes various projects by the Kreuzberg Museum in Berlin at the beginning of the 2000s, in which individual migration and integration experiences and the migration history of the neighborhood were explored in a number of exhibitions together with Turkish migrants and their children (Düspohl 2007). This successfully facilitated the mobilization and involvement of up to 100 neighborhood 156

residents for a period of up to a year on a museum project. These individuals would otherwise have been unlikely to have come into contact with the Kreuzberg Museum. At times, the coordination and support required a large commitment from museum staff. Factors contributing towards the success of the project also included the fact that the museum had built up a close cooperation with other parties in the social sector, including associations, initiatives, and institutions, which used the museum as a “resource” and “starting point” (Düspohl 2007: 38) for other activities. The City and Industry Museum Rüsselsheim is also considering how it can work towards greater social inclusion (Maul/ Röhlke 2018). The starting point comes from considerations to design inclusive and digital museum offerings, with the aim of expanding the range of visitors, i.e., to become more interesting for groups suffering from educational disadvantage and to become more acces­ sible for people with disabilities. In a student project⁴ that is being run as a partnership between the Faculty of Applied Social Sci­ ences at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and the City and Industry Museum Rüsselsheim, the aim is to develop ideas and opportunities to strengthen the alignment of the museum’s offering to circumstances of the social environment. To this end, a social area analysis is being conducted as a first step. This will detail the living environments and backgrounds of the different groups in the social area. It will also outline the specific characteristics of the neighborhood, such as opportunities for social interaction and the structure of offerings from other organizations. Following on from this, the museum will examine what it could offer in terms of social infrastructure that would be a sensible addition to the elements of social infrastructure that already exist in the neighborhood.

The evaluation of the various forms of innovative museum work suggests that the museum’s educational mandate is always somewhere in the background, even when this role is far from the top of the list under the concept of “social infrastructure.” Given this, the concept of the Salons of the Republic appears to offer more scope for autonomous usage options that more closely meet the needs of visitors, even if the intended aim is the strengthening of the democratic polity. Regardless of how museums view the actual implementation of their social function – whether this means more inclusive development of the range of visitors, social infrastructure, or by tailoring the production of exhibits and exhibition content to participants – for successful cultural work to occur with groups less likely to visit museums, the parties involved require appropriate interpersonal skills, knowledge of social areas, and skills in community work. These needs will create new approaches and potentially also a “new” role for social work in the context of cultural education. The nature of social workers’ profession means that they are skilled in accessing target groups who are less likely to visit museums, and in using methods of empowerment and establishing social networks in neighborhoods. Social work may also be needed in the Salons of the Republic, wherever there is a need for support to achieve sociopolitical objectives – such as by activating the target groups of social work and by using the Salons of the Republic more heavily in community work.

Marion Kamphans  157

Holger Kleine

THE ROOM AS A MODERATOR From an early age on, we have all experienced the phenomenon that the location in which a conversation takes place influences its development. There are two circumstances in particular that determine the course of a conversation to a certain extent. Firstly, the prerogatives of the person who has issued the invitation and possibly also holds the domiciliary rights to the premises. In the case of the Salons of the Republic, the invitation must be extended by the public authorities, as only then will the citizens recognize the salon as the material representation of the sovereignty of the people – and thus also of themselves. This binary role – of being simultaneously host and guest – cannot be delegated by the polity to private entities without forfeiting the legitimacy of the salons and thus re-erecting the barriers whose dismantlement is its very raison d’être.

Secondly, it is the characteristics of the specific room that determine the course of a conversation. A room is always party to the conversation due to the atmosphere it emanates and the effect it has on our momentary mood. It is the silent co-moderator of every conversation, it can inspire or stifle, it tempers the spirit – it affects. The way the Salons of the Republic affect us – as a palpable yet not haptic experience – should span the entire spectrum of possibilities, because they can and should be the festive ornaments of democracy. This may seem paradoxical, since it is precisely the matters of everyday life that are to be discussed in the salons. But the very fact that it is even possible for all citizens to discuss everyday matters publicly is neither something to be taken for granted nor a gift from above, but rather something that has been hard-won – and therefore a cause for pride and joy. This is why they should be intense, individually designed, memorable rooms. Their ambience should range from cheerful to serious, from exuberant to ascetic, from laid-back to solemn. Some will totally absorb you, while others leave you stunned. Once this proposition is accepted, let us consider the following hypothesis: 158

Rooms of democracy should affect – against the neutralization of the public interior. This thesis – at least in the German sociotope – is almost reflexively opposed: It would be better if the room were neutral, that is, if it had almost no effect, because every room with a strong personality affects each visitor differently, meaning its effect is subjective. To this we can respond that the objection – neat enough for its case for subjectivity – is not objective and therefore not universally valid. For it is not the effect that differs from person to person, but at the most the verdict, i.e., the judgmental reaction to the impressions which are experienced by most people in a similar way. To give an example: In 2014, I went on an excursion to Cologne with a group of students from Iowa. After visiting the cathedral, one of the students exclaimed: “The dome is so big. Gosh, I felt kind of lost in it … The church in my hometown is cozier!” The person in question had indeed perceived the numinous but considered its appearance to be an imposition. She had every right to do so, but it is somewhat alarming that she did not think twice in assuming that every room should be cozy and tailor-made for her.

A second objection to the allegation of subjectivity is the fact that there is no such thing as a room with no effect: Even a neutral room has an effect – a sober one! Walking into the room, you immediately feel as stiff as a poker. In Germany, there is truly no shortage of democratic agents, of foundations, organizations, initiatives offering the most commendable workshops and seminars – but what there is a shortage of are rooms in which people actually enjoy participating in them. These rooms are always stale, blandly friendly, and frostily dignified; they feel like antechambers, leaving you with the impression that there must be yet another arena hidden behind them in which the real debates are ignited and fought out. In the better seminars, at least the restaurant in the evening may constitute such an arena, magically relaxing the participants’ stiff upper lips and loosening their tongues. A democracy that takes place in waiting rooms such as these remains below its potential and it is hardly surprising that the degree of participation and identification – not to mention enthusiasm – leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, the pseudo-argument of merely subjective effects – our inability to relate to another’s experience thus relieving us of the burden of designing spaces that affect us – is not a wise abdication, but rather an attempt to window dress an uncritical relationship to oneself: It is the protective shield of those who cannot cope with affects and seek to rid themselves of them with hasty judgments, usually in derogatory terms, because by demeaning something, one elevates oneself, at least in one’s own self-perception. The buildings resulting from this self-righteous closedminded­ness of the recipients and the fear of those producing them (builders, organizers, event managers) are devastating: For public affairs, we are offered plain and sober rooms, for recreation, flashy short-lived effects, for

ceremonies, pre-democratic mises-en-scène: castles, palaces, churches … Democracies still have trouble developing their own attractive iconographies. As far as built and lived-in space is concerned, such an iconography cannot be decreed or updated like a logo every few years through a call for tenders. Democracies must be given time to deal calmly with fashions and to allow for diversity that goes beyond the individual’s taste. Once this is accepted, the following hypothesis should be considered: The interior is not a disposable commodity – against “moving with the times.” The less open one is to new experiences, the more one’s opinion is reliant on fashions. In this country, interiors are torn out at far too short intervals, not out of factual necessity, but in order to “give the room a makeover” or to “leave one’s own mark on it” and are replaced by fixtures which are supposedly “in keeping with the times” with no consideration for the historical integrity of the building organism as a whole. Interiors are much less frequently protected by the Antiquities and Monuments Office than building façades: They are regarded by society, if not as disposable commodities, then at least as a private matter. But in the case of public interiors, they are not private, not even in the legal sense of the word. The state should protect its interiors to a much greater extent than it currently does, because only in a cultural nation that does not disdainfully dispose of testimonies to attitudes that have become unfashionable, that not only grants the witnesses of pre-democratic times the right to patina and signs of wear can atmospheric diversity establish itself together with historical depth.¹ Only then, through selective protection and careful extension, by securing and reinterpreting the traces of time, through the friction between new functions Holger Kleine   159

and old attire, through respect for the unfashionable and outmoded, will this public interior promote dialogue and thus democracy. In return, it will, as a rule, be able to expect of its interiors: resilience, self-confidence, and strength of character. Once this is accepted, the following hypothesis should be examined: Room is resistance – against total flexibility. In our highly sophisticated and constantly evolving society, some people believe that a room should be as flexible as is technically possible, so as not to interfere with changing needs and thus avoid being rapidly disposed of. This well-intentioned thesis must be contradicted, because the greater the flexibility of the room, the lower its intensity. The multi-purpose rooms favored in the sixties and seventies are characterless, rapidly become dilapidated and are usually only ever used for one or two types of function. They proved unsuitable for any other purpose as a result of rather than despite their flexibility. But even on the small scale of the salon, which is our primary concern here, the idea of flexibility exudes little charm: stackable chairs with folding tables and worn-out folding partitions give debaters the impression that their arguments can be pushed aside as easily as the table on castors. Not once have I had a memorable experience in a perfunctorily furnished room. Standing in the Faculty Room of the Yale School of Architecture building designed by Paul Rudolph (1963), I was gripped with envy: An immensely casual leather sofa, a wide fireplace, built-in shelving, a table that could not be pushed aside, elegant chairs – they all imbued the room with the flair of a club room able to fan the flames of esprit, engagement, and understatement in every meeting. What is therefore needed on the part of the room are not fixtures of a fleeting nature, but an imposing presence with a strong character. 160

With this in mind, the cliché that the user must be able to appropriate the room can be more precisely defined. Appropriation cannot mean taking over the room without scruples or hesitation, but rather: allowing the room to make its impression and forming an opinion on it. It is about coming to an arrangement with it. The room remains the “other” and has the right to continue to be different from us and to resist us. Architecture always draws boundaries – it always puts up walls in our way. The room is not a docile servant, but a moderator who is obliged to provide us with space, but who is also allowed to ask surprising, even painful questions. It can sometimes be painful when different milieus clash, and yet it is precisely this exchange of views that is not only the order of the day, but imperative for any democracy. Once this is accepted, let us consider the following hypothesis: Salons transcend milieus – against the selfaffirmation club. Admittedly: It is easier for associations, parishes, and clubs to create intense rooms than for the state. A club is made up of members with the same convictions and interests. A salon, on the other hand, has no members, or at best only a handful of particularly dedicated people, so-called “habitués,” and thrives on the diversity of convictions and interests. Clubs consolidate milieus, salons transcend them. In clubs one may sit in silence, in the salon this would defeat the purpose of the salon itself. By definition, it is the task of the salonnière (who in this case is none other than the republic itself) – to encourage the invitees (the entirety of its citizens) from different milieus to engage in dialogue with one another. It goes without saying, then, that the state should refrain from founding clubs, but instead hold salons. In order to understand in more detail how rooms (and not only salons) can moderate

conversations, it may be helpful to sketch out a small typology of the rooms of speech and contradiction. This should make it easier to understand the following hypothesis: Each type of dialogue gravitates towards a different type of room – against the standardization of rooms. a. Rooms of summons: The axial arrangement Beckoning employees to come forward, summoning ambassadors, auditioning candidates, and calling in scapegoats for a dressing down: There are many kinds of summons. The conversation that follows between the powerful and the weak is reflected in the rooms of summons. Nowhere has this asymmetrical dialogue manifested itself in a more graphic and enduring way than in the axially arranged courtroom, the residuum of the throne room which, necessarily, still prevails everywhere. The zones of the parties are separated from one another by clear boundaries, sometimes even barriers, the benches firmly screwed into the floor, the role allocation perceivable through the various levels, podiums, and seating arrangements. In executive offices and boardrooms, as well as in many service rooms and even within one’s own four walls, remnants of this authoritarian room arrangement can still be found more frequently than one may realize – a room layout shown repeatedly and mocked by Charlie Chaplin to great effect in The Great Dictator. Rooms of summons are rooms that draw boundaries, create hierarchies, and consolidate them. It is noteworthy that in the spring of 2021, the Canadian Academy for Architecture of Justice in Toronto announced a student competition entitled Breaking the Cycle, which will address the architecture of the courtroom, this bastion of summons architecture. The competition announcement in Baunetz states: “In the criminal justice

system, there is a growing movement away from the rigid hierarchy with its harsh punishment system. Instead, it is increasingly being brought together with authorities of health and social services. The objective of the competition is to make this new form of cooperation architecturally visible” (Baunetz 2021). b. Rooms of invitation: The landscape Every power on earth requires rooms of summons, and it consolidates its power by means of periodic charm offensives and, for this purpose, requires rooms of invitation. Issuing an invitation means allowing others to enter one’s own sphere, means giving and receiving. Nowhere has the invitation manifested itself more clearly than in the salon. Here, the boundaries are constantly shifting, the focus of attention moves from place to place, the individuals take on different roles, and new groups are constantly forming. The layout of the room relaxes the axial structure, inspiring the surge of conversation and the surge of fond affection among the speakers. The room turns into a landscape that demands to be perceived in motion, in the succession of changing perspectives. In every living room, every hotel lounge, every sofa arrangement, however dull and inelegant, remnants of salon culture remain. Salon architecture by its very nature gravitates toward art nouveau with its flowing lines, and so it is no wonder that one of the most beautiful is the one designed for the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar by Henry van de Velde in 1903. And it is a cruel twist of fate that the salonnière of this Villa Silberblick, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, of all people, sympathized with powers that quashed the free flow of conversation in the most brutal way possible. Rooms of invitation are rooms that shift boundaries, create equality, dissolve rigidity. Holger Kleine   161

c. Rooms of counsel: The circle In addition to the rooms of merciless commitment (the summons) or those of a floating non-committal nature (the invitation), political power also requires wise counsel. To achieve the best possible results, it creates, at least temporarily, the fiction of equality and inviolability (immunity) of all participants, whether elected or appointed. A consultation among equals naturally gravitates towards the circle. The circle provides a good overview of the proceedings and positions each person at the same distance from the center, which, being empty, either symbolizes what is not yet there but is to be achieved (the resolution) or, for example, with the proverbial pennants on the round table, symbolizes what is to be preserved. Once it reaches a certain size, however, the circle loses its centering power: the communal spirit, the ability to see and hear each other well all diminish. Expanding the circle is precarious, because if a second row becomes necessary, the radical egalitarianism of the circle turns into a mercilessly hierarchical force – it is no longer the inclusiveness of the circle, but its exclusiveness that now catches the observer’s eye. “The inner circle,” “taking a back seat,” “a closed loop”: the favored few literally turn their backs on the observer. This is a dilemma that can be witnessed in countless meetings and meeting venues at municipal level d. Rooms of struggle: The tier The ancient Greeks found a solution to the dilemma of the circle which might at first glance seem paradoxical: the shape they preferred for the chambers of their buleuteria, their municipal halls, were terraced tiers, sometimes arranged in semicircles, sometimes (such as in Priene) and to particular effect as a 162

kind of square horse-shoe with three straight sides. Hierarchies were built in stone and then dismantled by the way they were used. The tiers afforded everyone the ability to be heard and seen well, and the incremental increases and decreases in visibility counterbalanced one another: What was lost in terms of proximity on the upper tiers, was gained in terms of the clear view from above. In addition, the steepness of the tiers intensified the atmosphere of the room, because physical human beings themselves formed the wall. This enabled the experience that witnessing another’s concentration and passion incited one’s own. But the orator benefits too: True, he enters between the tiers, goes down into the pit, but this debasement strips him of all indecorous haughtiness, indeed, identifies him as a hero who courts the favor of the (as we would call it today) sovereign people with nothing but the power of charisma and the word. I can only speculate here as to why this type of room, which after all has so many positive qualities, has only made a career for itself in modern times as a hall for anatomical demonstrations and, later, as a lecture hall – which usually only focuses on the individual orator and no longer on varying speakers and listeners – and not also as a council chamber. Is it the lack of flexibility of the tiers? The fact that they require more space? Is it their structural requirements? Was it simply that the Roman Curia Iulia, with its three very low steps for the three hundred senators’ chairs, remained the dominant historical archetype? e. Rooms of debate: The vis-à-vis When two people argue, they stand opposite one another. If we see parliament primarily as a place for yes-or-no votes, then it seems logical to have the opponents sit on two opposite-facing tribunes. It is obvious that this seating arrangement can fuel debates.

But as has also repeatedly been pointed out, this promotes debate as an end in itself, as mere competition, instead of instrumentalizing it as a means of factual deliberation and the search for compromise. The best-known example of such a confrontational arrangement of the political parties is the English House of Commons, which was the model for many Commonwealth parliamentary chambers. The members of parliament speak from the bench, only government representatives from the central table. When speaking, they formally address the Speaker, who alone and spontaneously determines the order in which the MPs are given the floor. In addition to this ritual and other details, even his mere job title demonstrates that (today, admittedly, only in theory) he will speak personally to the king (who still represents the personification of the will of the whole) and whose envoy he is in parliament. Where political unity is still symbolized in the body of the king, there is no need for it to be symbolized in the chamber, according to political scientist Philip Manow in his study on democratic representation (2008: 45). f. Rooms of agreement: The semicircle During the French Revolution, however, the king was beheaded, so that subsequently there was indeed an urgent need to symbolize unity and consensus. The parliament, and especially its seating arrangement, was one of the vanguards of the deeply symbolic elements of the fundamentally new order. In the many plans drafted for a new parliamentary chamber, variants of the elongated circle and the semicircle were predominant. Manow argues that the latter was proposed and chosen neither for functional reasons (acoustics and visibility), nor due to historical coincidence (repurposing of former theater halls), nor due to left/ right semantic considerations, but because it “architecturally counteracts the impression of party fragmentation that was inherent in

the British form” (2008: 33). The semicircle unifies. The revolutionary regimes needed to legitimize themselves by staging an image of consensus and unity so badly “that the ballots were burned after the vote, because once the volonté générale was established by majority vote, all evidence of previous dissent needed to disappear” (Manow 2008: 34). This is noteworthy in our context, as this line of argument illustrates that the seating arrangement chosen for almost all parliamentary chambers worldwide after the French Revolution except those of the Commonwealth was already in its modern origins intended not so much to perpetuate debate as to overcome it. The plurality of different opinions was to reveal itself only temporally in the order in which the speakers were given the floor, not spatially in the seating arrangement. In a parliament with the pure form of the semicircle, there is no fixed opposite number, only the temporary opposite number of the respective orator. To this day, in the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, government representatives sit in the parliamentary rows, and they have the option of speaking from their seats or from the lectern. By contrast, three of the four chambers which the Federal Republic of Germany has had to date were equipped with a government bench to the speaker’s right. With this bench, especially in the old Bundeshaus (federal parliament building), which was reminiscent of the terraced and tiered fronts of courtrooms, the government was elevated, positioning it to face parliament. This configuration can certainly be seen as a subtle, modest introduction of an element to stimulate debate, since it is parliament’s job to control the government and the government’s to justify itself. Of course, being positioned opposite parliament not only makes the government a target, but also makes it more visible as far as the media is concerned, while giving it a clear overview of Holger Kleine   163

the chamber. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that the danger that the parliament in its unity is no longer capable of truly reflecting the actual diversity of the population is already inherent in the unifying room arrangement. These six types of rooms of speech and contradiction can be seen as three complementary elements: rooms of summons versus rooms of invitation, rooms of counsel versus rooms of struggle, and rooms of debate versus rooms of agreement. Or figuratively speaking: axiality versus landscape, circle versus tier, and vis-àvis versus semicircle. These categories provide a very first, admittedly still rough, basis for a systematic investigation of the rooms of debate. It seems to be a little explored field. Manow, too, expressed his astonishment at the fact that even in the growing body of literature on parliamentary architecture, the question of the architectural form of the chamber and the seating arrangement “is mentioned only cursorily, if at all” (2008: 16). The Austrian pavilion at the 2014 Architecture Biennale in Venice carried out a study of parliamentary buildings across the globe but focused on their structural shells, not their chambers and seating arrangements. In the relevant literature on the architecture of Russian workers’ clubs, I could hardly find any reliable information on the question of the promotion or suppression of an open culture of debate by means of spatial arrangements. And this field of research should certainly be explored on an interdisciplinary basis: by sociologists and rhetoricians, by cultural scientists and psychologists, by architectural theorists and historians, and so on. But back to the salon: Its characteristic feature is its ability to be flexible and to mediate. It is particularly adept at taking up residence in and taking possession of a range of different 164   Holger Kleine

forms of housing. The six types characterized here are ultimately not opposites of the salon, but its pool of resources. The salons designed by our students can also be characterized as hybrids, which derive their affective power from the playful combination and constantly evolving adaptation of the basic types outlined above. Every architectural culture should include the preservation of all these types of rooms for dialogue and debate – for a vibrant democracy, their preservation is not an optional extra, but an obligation.

POSTFACE Ralf Kunze

A BALANCING ACT BETWEEN ART ACADEMY AND VOCATIONAL SCHOOL – On Wiesbaden’s Interior

Architecture Degree Program

The Salons of the Republic, exhibited at Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), are a powerful example of what teaching interior architecture needs to be about, besides pragmatic spatial and construction core competencies: teaching the skills necessary to invent “something new,” inventi­ ons that shape reality. Directly, in keeping with Vitruvius, as the production of beautiful, func­tional, and enduring interiors, and also indirectly: inventions that inspire thought and theory, ideally poetry too, and, as visions, could even have an effect on literature!

Holger Kleine has long been known to me as a “whisperer” and advocate of public interiors: Several years ago, as a freshly appointed professor of artistic interior architecture in Wiesbaden, he inspired his students to create outstanding fictional designs for state-of-theart European mosques. In line with the motto “Those who stay, build,” they investigated how contemporary transformations, i.e., a structural expression of integration and inclusion, could be created within the local sociocultural environment, while taking Muslim building traditions into consideration. Deliberately less high-threshold than the salons in the DAM’s temple of theory, the impressive series of many very beautiful exhibits was displayed in Waschsalon Wellritzstraße in Wiesbaden’s Westend and was thus successfully made accessible to the public in the midst of our Muslim fellow citizens’ everyday life. Kleine initially conceptualized the salons as public “spaces for all” as a major building structure for Berlin, specifically for the site that Axel Schultes, architect of the Federal

Chancellery and author of the “Band des Bundes,” an urban master plan comprising a “ribbon” of federal buildings, had long earmarked as the site of a “citizens’ forum.” However, this forum remained a diffuse idea since it had not been foreseen as a program item in the competition for the government buildings. The empty space between the Chancellery and Paul-LöbeHaus left room for many options, as Schultes had possibly already envisaged. One such option was then designed by bachelor students of interior architecture under the conceptual guidance of Holger Kleine. In a discursive and collaborative process, they worked together on the design that they had incrementally developed. Individually designed salons for direct discussions, inspiring and dynamic in their appearance and atmosphere, each about the size of a small classroom, gradually emerged. Around these salons, intriguing areas invite the visitors to stretch their legs and make new acquaintances, together forming a spacious landscape combined with gastronomy and associated infrastructure. We are already familiar with similarly interwoven urban Ralf Kunze   165

dimensions of the street and the square as public scenarios of innovative, urban life from modern campus typologies and learning landscapes with their extensive spaces for communication and their stimulating atmospheres, such as the Rolex Learning Center at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Arch: SANAA) or the Student Learning Center at Ryerson University Toronto (Arch: snøhetta). But beyond that, the Salons of the Republic, as places designed for speaking, contradicting, and tolerance, not only represent rooms of democratic identity; they are also, through sharing, communicating, and struggling to find collaborative ways of thinking and feeling, something approaching places of initiation of democratic existence. A similar program was developed for Frankfurt’s Paulsplatz in a design seminar two years later. Here, in the context of the historic center, the architectural elements form a denser spatial structure and, together with the volume of the church, act as a cohesive assemblage of urban development. The possibly somewhat overstated social fiction of these innovative inner worlds of republican identity is also conveyed by the impressive poetry and dramaturgy of the students’ analog collage-like drawings. The essential motive for these two fictitious demonstration projects of both physical and intellectual democratic encounter appears to be the affirmative interest in self-determined community and the common good. After the principles of “hope” and “responsibility,” the Anthropocene now demands from us humans above all “innovations in humility and empathy.” In the light of the situation our environment finds itself in today, we should ideally, at the latest since the 1972 report The Limits to Growth commissioned by the Club of Rome, be pursuing visions based on sustainabili166

ty: Now, after a long period of inactivity, we are forced to do so. To achieve this requires critical evaluation, correction, and transformation: As large structures, giving identity to the city, and as small, exquisite places, the Salons of the Republic address and embody this potential of the power of convivial interaction. Louis Kahn calls such places sites: “A site has an ideology because it stands for a condition humaine” (Romaldo/Jaimini 1984: 53). These Salons of the Republic become cult sites of democratic practice, extolling democratic hope and certainty. I would also join Amanda Gorman in her desire for a country that truly offers opportunities for all, “all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man” (January 20, 2021). An aspiration of this kind is the constitutive prerequisite for widespread constructive participation and for the identity of a convincing debate culture in our democracy. But how does one actually go about planning rooms designed for thinking and feeling, for coming together for empathic debate, for promoting democratic identity, and for experiencing community? How does one learn to make these places? In most parts of the world, we professors teach these skills using simulation games or case simulations of various sizes known as “designs.” Such simulation games, played through individually by entire cohorts in competitions for ideas, have a long tradition. They are tried and tested design methodology: The Roman Accademia di San Luca has been organizing student competitions since 1596, in which a task (for example, the design of a church) was worked on under the most realistic conditions possible.¹ Since the room we are developing is always only a shell for life, we as designers have to

visualize during the design process the diverse but ultimately indeterminable forms of life it already partially anticipates: In a process of empathic speculation, we think up “probable” scenarios of use, incorporating extensive research and adding our own experiences and fantasies. Like actors, we willingly and playfully dig deep within ourselves to personify every possible wish, no matter how farfetched. In this role, we are able to playfully test each individual desire, which we then narrow down and examine in terms of its plausibility by regularly taking on different roles, as critical advocates of social concerns, for example: balancing theses and antitheses, alternately representing the interests of residents or users on the one hand and customers, employees, investors, planning partners, building authorities, etc. on the other. This internal role play, oscillating between pros and cons, trains the individual in the skills of reflection and self-criticism and aims to optimize the process of finding solutions to problems. This inner debate is initially learned and practiced by means of public presentations, in which the designer’s personal motives and ambitions have already been objectified in 2D drawings and 3D models. This “objectification” of thoughts and ideas is the most important prerequisite for objective, argumentative debate: an object and its genesis are criticized and discussed, not the person who created it! The designs, as expressions born of the individuals themselves, can thus be regarded more dispassionately, also by their creators themselves, a process which leads to new insights and builds trust when carried out among people who do not really know each other. The way a person is, thinks, or feels must never be criticized directly; only what he or she previously thought and materialized in the object. Inviting others to

examine the evolution of the stages of development together in a constructive and objective way implies the psychologically immensely important assumption that the individual in question is fundamentally open to being criticized in the moment and to making changes in the future. The teachers, therefore, as critics in the ongoing design process, do not play the role of a judge pronouncing a sentence. Not until the end of the process is reached is there any form of “judge” or “jury.” Up to that point, the task of the teachers is rather to provide their experience-based reflections as advocates of student ideas and ambitions. This shift in perspective which they offer is designed to help students develop a capacity for empathy and reflection. Since one of the objectives here is always artistic personal development, even constructively motivated criticism could have a damaging and hurtful effect if this context has not been clearly explained or understood. Each project is accompanied by a professor. In terms of the content, more complex contexts are worked on and supervised as the students progress through their studies. In the first two semesters, students acquire basic interior design skills in “Design Basics 1+2”; in the following semesters, they move on to the specialized areas of application “Architecture/ Space,” “Object/Furniture/Design” and “Scene­ o­graphy/Corporate Interior Architecture.” In addition to these subject areas and fields of expertise, our multi-faceted teaching concept for interior architecture in the “Design Computer Science Media” faculty also defines itself as a course characterized by intensive discussions between students and the individual designer personalities of the professors. Our diverse and to some extent differing practical experiences, opinions, and methods each provide the background for very personal design guidance over the course of one semesRalf Kunze   167

ter, a little like the principle of the master class at art academies. The design processes of the projects, accompanied – and experienced by the students themselves – in this intense and diverse way, each represent half the required work of one semester and are awarded 15 credit points. In contrast, the designs submitted as the students’ final projects are usually jointly evaluated by all. At the latest in the university’s public exhibitions and examinations, all the students are able to see and experience the high degree of consensus among the professors in terms of fundamental values and their assessment of aesthetic, technical, and methodological qualities, and occasionally also just how divergent their positions sometimes are. I am delighted that the Department of Interior Architecture at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences has been given the opportunity for the second time – and just one year after the exhibition “My Home Is My Parcel” – to exhibit at Deutsches Architekturmuseum, one of the “sacred” places of my own student days, which inspired me many times over with unforeseen impulses. This offers us the opportunity to demonstrate our university’s cuttingedge professional skills and, in the spirit of the exhibited designs, to invite debate.

168

REFERENCES The Planned Center of Democracy at Paulskirche in Frankfurt ¹ Historisches Museum Frankfurt: Model of Frankfurt’s Old Town. https://historisches-museum-frankfurt.de/de/node/33878 (last accessed: March 10, 2021). ² Ongoing discussion since 2018 in the German Architecture Fo­ rum on the topic of “Paulskirche: Renovation or Reconstruction?” https://www.deutsches-architekturforum.de/thread/13646-paul­ skirche-generalsanierung-oder-rekonstruktion/?pageNo=1 (last accessed: March 10, 2021). ³ The initiative “Pro Altstadt” has succeeded in securing political support for the reconstruction of the New Old Town/Neue Alt­ stadt: http://www.pro-altstadt-frankfurt.de (last accessed: March 10, 2021). ⁴ The initiative “Aktionsgemeinschaft Schauspielhaus Frankfurt”: https://www.frankfurterschauspielhaus.de (last accessed: March 10, 2021). ⁵ The initiative “Rothschild-Palais im Grüneburgpark e.V. i.G.”: https://www.rothschildpalais.de (last accessed: March 10, 2021). ⁶ The Brückenbauverein has already initiated the installation of a reproduction of the statue of Charlemagne on the Old Bridge/Alte Brücke: https://brueckenbauverein-frankfurt.de (last accessed: March 10, 2021).

the “Nuremberg Funnel”): Under this approach, learners are seen as vessels to be filled with scientific knowledge in lectures and seminars. ³ “The Next Level & James Turrell – While we are Waiting“ exhibi­ tion from November 27, 2020, to August 15, 2021 at the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. https://www.aros.dk/en/art/currentexhibitions/the-next-level-james-turrell-while-we-are-waiting/ (last accessed March 7, 2021). ⁴ The “Social Inclusion in the Digital Museum” student project, which is part of the BA in social work degree program, will be headed by myself from the summer semester 2021 until the end of the winter semester 2021/22. It will address questions that include the following: What could supplementary offerings from the museum that would have value for recipients of social work look like? How can the museum create improved accessibility, particularly for recipients of social work? How can social work play a bridging role in the area of cultural education?

The Room as a Moderator ¹ Probably the most spectacular example of history robbing itself was the 1987 demolition of the plenary hall in the old Bundeshaus – the first chamber of a longstanding German de­ mocracy, the interior of which, thanks in part to public television, was deeply ingrained in citizens‘ visual memory like no other in the Bonn Republic.

⁷ Federal government passes resolution on federal foundation in Frankfurt: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ gruendung-einer-bundesstiftung-beschlossen-1874184 (last accessed: March 11, 2021).

A Balancing Act between Art Academy and Vocational School – on Wiesbaden’s Interior Architecture Degree Program

Places of Democratic Innovations as Salons of the Republic?

¹ On the subject of action-based learning in the project “as a method of practical problem solving,” Michael Knoll also writes that by 1702 these competitions had become established to the point where they were held regularly – the Académie Royale d‘Ar­ chitecture in Paris, for example, has held regular competitions since 1763, which were mandatory for all students (2011: 21–27).

¹ There are 250 different design tools on the website of the OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (2021). ² It comes as little surprise that in urban planning discussions more men, older people, long-term residents, voters, and home owners tend to participate (e.g., Levine Einstein et al. 2018), i.e., those who think they have something to gain or lose.

Strengthening Democracy through Interaction – Inspirations from New Museum Work ¹ Visits are unevenly distributed across museums: while popular museums and major special exhibitions attract a very large number of visitors, for small museums it is difficult to generate a “significant number of visits” (Wegner 2011: 192). The socioeconomic composi­ tion of museum visitors also differs across the various types of mu­ seums: technology museums are particularly popular with men with academic qualifications, while cultural history and art museums are visited most often by well-educated women. Open-air museums are an exception to the trend, with a visitor base that is relatively heterogeneous in terms of char-acteristics such as age, gender, and education level (Wegner 2016: 260–264). ² This rather static view that was directed towards learning is reminiscent of the belief that comes up again and again on what constitutes “good teaching” at universities; the idea that teaching and learning work in a similar way to a funnel (what is known as

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Democracy and the Public Sphere amidst Digital Change

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AUTHORS Peter Cachola Schmal Peter Cachola Schmal, born in Altötting in 1960, has a Filipina mother and a Bavarian father. He is an architecture graduate and has headed the German Architecture Museum for 15 years. He publishes, judges, and curates and has twice represented Germany at architecture biennales: in São Paulo in 2007 and in Venice in 2016, with “Making Heimat: Germany Arrival Country.” www.dam-online.de Michael May Prof. Michael May is professor of theory and methods of social work, with a particular focus on community work, in the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences at the RheinMain University of Ap­ plied Sciences. Prof. May also works in the management of the Hessian Doctoral Center for Social Work and is its spokesperson. Prof. May holds the right to be a special professor for education in the Faculty of Education at the Goethe University Frankfurt. He was appointed honorary professor of social exclusion and pedagogy in the welfare state by the Danish School of Education at Aarhus University. [email protected] | www.hs-rm.de Jonas Aaron Lecointe Jonas Aaron Lecointe studied English and German language and literature at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, with his final thesis focusing on Shakespeare, Melville, and democracy. His most recent prior role after graduation was as the managing editor of form Design Magazine. He now works as an academic staff member on the DIALOG IN MUSEUMS initiative within the IMPACT RheinMain project that examines the influence of digitization on everyday life.

Marion Kamphans Dr. Marion Kamphans is a social scientist and a visiting professor of education and diversity in social work in the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden. She teaches and researches on topics including educa­ tion in varying contexts, gender and diversity, social inequality and participation, and on digitality and digital media [email protected] | marionkamphans.wordpress.com Holger Kleine Prof. Holger Kleine is an architect in Berlin. Since 2010, he has been professor of artistic-conceptual interior spaces at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden. His research area is on public interior spaces. He has held guest lecturer posts abroad. Prof. Kleine has been the architect for projects such as the German Embassy in Warsaw and is author of the books New Mosques (ȷovis, 2014) and The Drama of Space (Birkhäuser 2017). Jointly with Uwe Münzing, he is the curator and editor of My Home Is My Parcel (DAM German Architecture Museum 2020). [email protected] | www.design-follows-drama. com Ralf Kunze Prof. Ralf Kunze studied architecture at Technische Universität Braunschweig and the ETH Zurich. He is DAAD scholarship hold­ er and winner of the Göderitz and Laves prizes, with numerous successes in conceptual and design competitions. Following periods of employment in Hamburg, Prof. Kunze opened his own office in Berlin and has specialized as an architect for interior design projects, including for ambassadorial residences, hotels, and school buildings. Since 2004, he has been professor of de­ sign principles. For many years, he has been head of the ‘Raum Inszenierung Design’ interior architecture degree program at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. [email protected] | www.die-innenarchitekten.de Thomas Heimer Thomas Heimer has been professor of innovation management at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Rüsselsheim since 2009. Since 2018, he has been the head of the IMPACT RheinMain project. Since the German office of Technopolis Deutschland GmbH opened in 2009, he has been its academic head. He also serves as the academic head at the Smart Living office, which supports the Smart Living economic initiative on behalf of BMWi. Prof. Heimer is a member of the Expert Council for Climate Issues and chairman of the Go-Cluster advisory council for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy [email protected] | www.hs-rm.de/impact

[email protected] |  www.hs-rm.de/impact Sandra Speer Sandra Speer has held various roles in academic management and is the project coordinator of the strategic project “IMPACT RheinMain – Transfer with the Focus Smart Energy, Smart Home, Smart Mobility,“ which aims to systematically expand transfer to be a third pillar alongside teaching and research at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. She has many years of experience, including internationally, in evaluating and advising the public sector.

Elvira Schulenberg Elvira Schulenberg is a social pedagogue and a member of academic staff at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. She teaches in the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, focusing on “Transformational Development of the Social Space.” [email protected] | www.hs-rm.de

[email protected] | www.hs-rm.de/impact

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ARCHITECTS Berlin project: The salons are all individual design The salon level and the main hall are a joint pro­ ject by the seminar participants (bachelor’s program 2018/19). The roof landscape is a project by Felix Jäger (master’s program 2020/21). Annkathrin Böhm: 44 Salon, 45, 47t, 56 Jessica Breier: 49m, 58rb, 77b Maria Exael Carrillo Pinto: 46b Swetlana Grez: 47m, 58lb, 79 Katharina Hatlie: 49t, 58rm Felix Jäger: 32f.,36, 44lb, 48b, 57b, 60–67 Anna Katkova: 48t, 59

Henrike Langefeld: 69 Idee Podest­ landschaft Mona Lieber: 57mr, 78 Maren Maidhof: 48m, 57lm Cristian Miler: 49b, 57rt Johanna Rech: 47b, 58lm, 77t Isabell Wischer: 46m, 57lt Lisa Wunn: 46t, 58t

Frankfurt am Main project: The salons are all individual design In the bachelor’s program, the building designs are all group designs; in the master’s program, some are individual and some are group design Michelle Bauer: 83lt, 90b Elise Bethke: 87lb Emily Buchholz: 89t Annkristin Brunhorn: 91b Franca Bürkel: 96lb Hannah Dittgen: 98lb Paula Engelhardt: 89b Laura Fuchs: 95lt Janette Hackmann: S.82b, 95lb, 103 Quader Louisa Kaufmann:87t Catalina Hostiuc: 95r, 96t Nathalie Kaiser: 99 2. rt Anna Klinke: 90t Anna Kurtz: 98rb Frederike Müller: 82t, 84f., 87rb, 104f. Milena Naujoks: 95lm Ngoc Anh Nguyen: 92t Camila Perez: 93 Stephanie Pucher: 98t Soosan Raghei: 83lb, 92lb, 115–117 Sabrina Ris: 99lt Pauline Saal: 89m Sophia Schygulla: 92rb

Hana Sie: 91t Lara Silhavy: 86 Maike Steinbach: 99b Anna-Lena Trefzger: 96rb Afrouz Tehrani: 94, 102, 103 Kubus, 108 Minh Anh Trieu: 99rt Diane von Ludwiger: 97 Sandra Voss: 88, 92mb Leonie Wittchen: 96mb

Group designs: Avdijaj, Bethke, Nguyen, Shumilova, Sie, Trieu: 114 Bauer, Greve: 83rt, 110f., Brunhorn, Kaufmann. Silhavy: 109, 113t Buchholz, von Ludwiger, Wittchen: 120f. Bürkel, Schygulla, Voss: 118f. Dittgen, Engelhardt, Fuchs, Kurtz, Steinbach: 83rb, 112 Kaiser, Ris: 100f., 106f. Klinke, Saal: 83 2. rb, 113b.

References indicated by page number and t (top), b (bottom), m (middle), left (l), r (right).

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AC K N O W L E D G M E N TS Particular thanks goes to the participants in the architecture courses at the Department of Interior Architecture Bachelor’s students, winter semester 2018/19: Annkathrin Böhm, Jessica Breier, Maria Exael Carrillo Pinto, Swetlana Grez, Katharina Hatlie, Felix Jäger, Anna Katkova, Henrike Langefeld, Mona Lieber, Maren Maidhof, Cristian Miler, Johanna Rech, Isabell Wischer, Lisa Wunn Bachelor’s students, winter semester 2020/21: Erblina Avdijaj, Michelle Bauer, Elise Bethke, Emily Buchholz, Annkristin Brunhorn, Franca Bürkel, Hannah Dittgen, Paula Engelhardt, Laura Fuchs, Elenya Greve, Louisa Kaufmann, Anna Klinke, Anna Kurtz, Milena Naujoks, Ngoc Anh Nguyen, Camila Perez, Pauline Saal, Sophia Schygulla, Anna Shumilova, Hana Sie, Lara Silhavy, Maike Steinbach, Anna-Lena Trefzger, Minh Anh Trieu, Diane von Ludwiger, Sandra Voss, Leonie Wittchen Master’s students, winter semester 2020/21: Janette Hackmann, Catarina Hostiuc, Felix Jäger, Nathalie Kaiser, Frederike Müller, Stephanie Pucher, Soosan Raghei, Sabrina Ris, Afrouz Tehrani for their idealism, eagerness to learn, enthusiasm, and team spirit, without which these designs would not have been created. The students Felix Jäger, Johanna Rech, Sandra Voss for always being willing to take on new tasks. The heads of the Department of Interior Architecture Ralf Kunze and Uwe Münzing for their support over the year. Michael May, Marion Kamphans, Elvira Schulenberg at the Applied Social Sciences department and the students Walter Hergert, Julia Hübner, Felix Ludwig, Chiara Reinhard, Denise Rittweger, Stefanie Zehelein, and Pascal Zemelka for their curiosity about nascent architecture. Carole Chuffart, Paris-based architect, for esprit and temperament in our workshop. Sabine Besajaew, for communicating our spatial ideas on these pages, and Maria Lorenz, for communicating our spatial ideas on the walls. Birgit Klose and her International Office for their generous support. Thomas Heimer, Sandra Speer, Jonas Aaron Lecointe, and Bastian Eine at IMPACT RheinMain for their motivation and commitment. Peter Cachola Schmal for his inspiring clarity of vision, opinionatedness, and generosity.

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IMPRINT Copyright 2021 by ȷovis Verlag GmbH The copyright for the texts is held by the authors. The copyright for the illustrations is held by Moritz Bernoully: pp. 38–43, 50–55, 60–63, 68f. Annkathrin Böhm: pp. 44rb, 45, Jessica Breier: p. 74 Felix Jäger: pp. 32f., 36, 44lb, Holger Kleine: p. 70m, Maren Maihof: pp. 71, 73rt, 73lb, 73 2. lb Cristian Miler: pp. 70t, Johanna Rech: pp. 10–29, 34f., Sandra Voss: pp. 122–127 Lisa Wunn: pp. 70b, 73lt, 73 2. lt, 73rb In cooperation with RheinMain University of Applied Sciences represented by Prof. Holger Kleine And by the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and the architects listed All rights reserved. Cover image Salon of the Republic Berlin, model photograph Editor Holger Kleine Contact RheinMain University of Applied Sciences Faculty of Design Computer Science Media Department of Interior Architecture Prof. Holger Kleine Unter den Eichen 5 65195 Wiesbaden [email protected] TEAM IMPACT RheinMain at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences Management: Prof. Thomas Heimer, Sandra Speer Coordination of the Salons of the Republic: Jonas Aaron Lecointe Funding provided by the initiative Innovative Hoch­ schulen of BMBF/GWK, project IMPACT RheinMain (FKZ: 03IHS071)

TEAM DAM (German Architecture Museum) Director: Peter Cachola Schmal Deputy director: Andrea Jürges Public relations: Brita Köhler, Anna Wegmann Secretarial support and administration: Inka Plechaty, Jacqueline Brauer Building services: Joachim Müller-Rahn, Enrico Hirsekorn Ticket office: Ieva Paegle, Milan Dejanov, Denissa Albu Translation Geoffrey Miller (essays by Lecointe, Kamphans, Speer; biographies and imprint) Kathrin Bennett (all other texts) Editorial design cüvee – Empathisches Design, Wiesbaden, Sabine Besjaew Exhibition design DESERVE – Raum und Medien Design, Wiesbaden, Mario Lorenz Exhibition The Salons of the Republic at Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) from June 17 to July 15, 2021 Accompanying events Vernissage on June 17, 2021 DIALOG IN MUSEUMS #12 on June 22, 2021 Street, Internet, Salon – (No) Room for Debate? on July 13, 2021 Printing and binding Bibliographic information of the German National LibraryThe German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography. More detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de ȷovis Verlag GmbH Lützowstrasse 33 10785 Berlin Germany ȷovis books are available worldwide from selected booksellers. Information on our international sales and distribution can be obtained from your bookseller or from www.jovis.de. ISBN 978-3-86859-709-7 (Softcover) ISBN 978-3-86859-987-9 (PDF)