Steffen Lehmann Books

When empty city lots and abandoned buildings are reclaimed for creative architectural or artistic interventions, interesting things happen. These days, as the postindustrial city continues to morph, and often to atrophy, public space has become an increasingly exciting laboratory for interdisciplinary cooperation among artists, architects, urban planners and landscape architects.Featuring essays by experts in architecture, urbanism and contemporary culture, Back to the City documents 28 site-specific installations and temporary interventions in Germany and Australia, which offer interesting prospects for the revitalization of empty land, neatly demonstrating the great potential of provisional usage of urban spaces. All projects date from 2002 to 2008, as curated by architect and urban planner Steffen Lehmann, Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, UNESCO Professor for Sustainable Urban Development and the founding director of s_Lab Space Laboratory for Architectural Research and Design.

Urban Regeneration - A Manifesto for transforming UK Cities in the Age of Climate Change explores and offers guidance on the complex process of how to transform cities, continuing the unfinished project of the seminal 1999 text Towards an Urban Renaissance.

Trans-Atlantic Engagements: The Contribution and Impact of German Educators to US Architectural Education explores the history and contribution of pedagogical concepts of German-trained professors of architecture at schools in the United States.

The study Reimagining the Library of the Future investigates the various models of public buildings and civic space through the lens of the library.

If the dialogue and exchange between the two disciplines of art and architecture has always been an enriching and inspiring one, it has also been one in which borders have been transgressed and tensions have arisen. Space, Time, Architecture invites all concerned parties to reconsider the possibilities for productive cooperation between the two art forms. Spaces in the middle of Berlin are offered up as venues to be used during the UIA Architecture Congress (Summer 2002), spaces in which light installations, material collages, and video art will interact with rooms, construction sites, interior yards, and architecture. Artists Julian Opie, Cida de Aragao, Les Schliesser, and others will cooperate with well-known architects, referencing mass mobility, urbanization, and privatization of the public sphere.