Colloquium on the topic "'StadtWende' - Urban Renewal at the Turning Point"

In the late GDR, historic inner cities were not only the scene of neglect, demolition and feelings of powerlessness, but also became dynamic places of social activation. The collaborative project "StadtWende" (City Turnaround), launched in 2019, asks how experts and affected citizens dealt with the problem of decades of neglect of historic building fabric and how there was a rapid change of course in urban development policy in the GDR after the opening of the border in 1989. The project focuses on the role played by reform forces, cultural institutions and citizens' groups in this process and the effects and after-effects this had.

Sarah Day, Harald Engler and Julia Wigger (Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research (IRS) e.V., Erkner) will present the research project „StadtWende - Stadterneuerung am Wendepunkt“ (Urban Renewal at the Turning Point). One focus will be the research on citizens' groups with their emergence, genesis and practices as well as the implementation of the research findings on the project website www.stadtwende.de.

The colloquium will take place digitally via the Cisco Webex platform in the summer semester 2021. Meeting room: https://uni erfurt.webex.com/meet/DuT.Erfurt

The meeting room will open 15 minutes before the start of the event. No separate prior registration directly with Webex is necessary, you can join the meeting directly via your browser. You need more information? Please contact: dut.info@uni erfurt.de

About the speakers: Dr Harald Engler is head of the BMBF-funded research project "StadtWende" at the Historical Research Unit of the IRS, of which he is deputy head of department. Sarah Day is employed as a documentalist in the project. Here she is responsible for the database and the associated project website. Julia Wigger is a research assistant in the project. As part of the project, she is writing her dissertation on the genesis and impact of the citizens' initiatives against the decline of the old city and their significance for the peaceful revolution.