Housing Culture Trail
Blue House, Dortmund / Photo: Thorsten Schauz
The goal of the "Housing Culture Trail", which involves almost 60 home projects throughout the Ruhr Metropolis, is to provide an insight into the diversity of everyday life in the Ruhr region. In contrast to conventional architectural and city tours, the "Housing Culture Trail" seeks to describe and, most importantly, provide a hands-on experience of the physical, social and atmospheric facets of everyday life on the Ruhr, taking account of the historical architectural context.
This starts with the home itself and how it can be constructed, used and adapted, the home environment, its position in the urban landscape, the density and mix of the local population, and embraces social structures and questions concerning the identity and symbolic significance of different types of home.
During 2010, guided tours will visit actual inhabited dwellings to vividly recall the history of home life from 1850 to the present day. A total of 60 home projects - from a detached house to a housing estate - will be featured, representing the four main themes of life in the Ruhr Metropolis: Housing Estates, Past and Present, Urbanisation and Demography.
The "Housing Culture Trail" is geared towards a professional audience as well as the general public. The sites covered by the three- to four-hour coach tours and the one- to two-hour walking tours are based around the Capital of Culture's gateway cities: Duisburg, Oberhausen, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund. During "Housing Culture Day" on 19 September and the "Housing Culture Summer" from August to October, additional inhabited dwellings will be opened up to visitors during the guided tours.
The home projects examine individual buildings, building conversions and housing estates from different eras and from different perspectives: from modern housing construction in the Duisburg inland port area, transformational processes in the large housing estates (Tossehof in Gelsenkirchen, Hustadt in Bochum and Schillerpark in Oer-Erkenschwick), building conversions and the re-use of former industrial premises or the renovation and modernisation of historical buildings (Hattingen's Old Town, Duisburg's Bauhaus Karree), through to residential projects in response to the Ruhr region’s demographic changes (WohnreWIR Tremonia in Dortmund, Fliedner Dorf in Mülheim an der Ruhr).
Ruhr Metropolis Housing Culture Summer:
August 1 – October 31, 2010
Inaugural event: August 1, 2010, 11 a.m.
Closing event: October 31, 2010, 11 a.m.
Housing Culture Day: September 19, 2010, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Partners: STADTIDEE, Landesinitiative StadtBauKultur NRW, Ministry for Construction and Transport of the State of NRW, Curators of Monuments in the Ruhr Working Group, Architektenkammer NRW, local authorities of the Ruhr, THS Wohnen GmbH, "WIR – Wohnen im Revier" (cooperation of municipal housing companies in the Ruhr)
Sponsored by: NRW.BANK, Ministry for Construction and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, LWL-Kulturstiftung, Nationale Stadtentwicklungspolitik (National Urban Development Policy Agency), working group of the non-profit housing companies in Oberhausen, Cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Hamm, Hattingen
Main project sponsor of the RUHR.2010 Housing Culture Trail: ista International GmbH
The Housing Culture Trail - the catalogue
The Housing Culture Trail / Cover: Office STADTIDEE / RUHR.2010
From a factory owner's villa to a gazebo, from a late nineteenth-century quarter to a contemporary residential project, from high-rise housing to a half-timbered house - the "Housing Culture Trail" provides visitors with a vivid experience of everyday life in the Ruhr region, with all its qualities and facets. This book documents examples of a housing culture that are as diverse and distinctive as the Ruhr region itself.
Büro STADTIDEE / RUHR.2010 GmbH
The Housing Culture Trail – Living in Ruhr Metropolis
24,95 EUR
Klartext-Verlagsges.; Auflage: 1., Auflage (April 2010)
Languange: English
ISBN 3837503860
You can find further information (in German) at:
www.routederwohnkultur.de
www.stadtidee.de