All Things Urban

In the City Lab Weimar course, we methodically return to the origins of tourism – when travelling meant walking, exploring and learning. Weimar's most famous citizen, Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, has shown this in his extensive journeys through Europe – the "Grand Tour" or "educational journey". Rather than remaining in the role of the mere outside spectator, he tried to truly get to know distant places and thereby broadened his own horizons. The City Lab Weimar is an interdisciplinary course that seeks out the unknown and turns Weimar into a classroom. **The city as a classroom – learning from the unknown** The city of Weimar is characterised by its history, its cultural significance and its diverse architectural styles. Every year, more than 700,000 tourists visit the city. The tourism industry creates expectations and desires in visitors' minds before they even arrive. But is Weimar really the city that is described in travel brochures and tourist guidebooks? Are there alternative perspectives and urban phenomena that are off the beaten track, from which we can learn as urban designers and urbanists? Even if we walk on the same path, we all experience the city differently This course in urbanism uses experimental exploration and documentation methods to fathom and shed light on mundane experiences in peripheral, everyday and under-represented urban landscapes in Weimar. Periphery not only refers to the edges of the city, but also those spaces and places that are usually off the beaten track. We will seek out the seemingly banal and mundane places (see A. Simone 2010) and explore the scenery and conditions of the city through methods of active walking with the help of flaneurie (see W. Benjamin), strollology (see L. Burgkhardt) and dérive (the Situationists). **A compendium of alternative city experiences** We invite students to become practical explorers, to travel the city in unexpected ways – in groups and on their own – to document, reflect and convey their experiences. The result of the City Lab Weimar is a compendium of alternative city guidebooks for undiscovered everyday spaces. A group exhibition with the documentation of the results will encapsulate the alternative views. LEARNING OBJECTIVES - discuss urban phenomena on a hands-on empirical and theoretical level - develop and apply methods for urban investigations and ethnographic explorations - dive into the multifacetted quality of public space in general and Weimars urban landscape in particular - practice and improve your visual documentation skills, such as drawing, sketching, mapping The course language is English.

The course is suitable for BA/MA and PhD students with a background in architecture, urban planning, sociology, political science or a similar field.

The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar is an international research university that is committed to the idea of Bauhaus and therefore has a traditionally international orientation. Its aspiration is to combine arts with sciences and technics which leads us to run a path that is unique in Germany.

A scholarship is available, click "Register" to find out more.