CITYMAKERS

Twin towns Duisburg and Wuhan: Commonalities of different cities? Similar cities with differences? Exploring traces of history and the connections to China in the former steel city. A film by Sonja Broy and Silvan Hagenbrock.

Is there a wisdom about how a people or a society can find happiness? What is needed in order to lead a fortunate and contended life? A film by Susanne Elgeti and Annette Mehlhorn.

When we think of France, images of Paris come to our mind: the Eiffel tower, the Champs Elysées, walking carefree, basking in on the culture and the atmosphere. How does this image hold up for international students in the middle of a global pandemic? How does it hold up for other French cities? A film by Edna Peza.

5 years of project funding by CITYMAKERS co-initiator, the Robert Bosch Foundation, are coming to an end this autumn.  Better than ‘singing the blues’ we decided to happily celebrated a rich ‘harvest’ of results, true to the motto of ‘Keep Talking, Keep Walking, Keep Thinking.’ –  Watch the 5-Year-Special-Video, get the CITYMAKERS Global Village Postcard, read the special interview-series, and have a look of how lucky we were to celebrate life in Berlin.

The CITYMAKERS China-Europe program – as of Sept 2020 – has evolved from a project consisting of two initiating partners to a network constellation of diverse actors on various levels with several sub-projects. Be inspired by the long list knowledgeable, prestigious, creative, dedicated, committed, wise, diverse, trusting, kind and unique partners we had the pleasure to work with!

Meet Katja, the “mastermind” behind the CITYMAKERS network, who loves designing models of creative interaction that have both thematic depth and a human touch.

Social Entrepreneurship meets City-Making: How to move from idea to reality? From project to long-term sustainable business models?  Key questions for those who want to really MAKE a difference and create impact. One line of activities within the CITYMAKERS Program was built around  social entrepreneurship capacity building. Read here about our learning journey in this field, and on the 4 project cases  by peers from the CITYMAKERS community.

Meet Yimeng Wu, communication designer and founder of Studio Wu 無, who is the artistic soul behind CITYMAKERS’ visual identity. Yimeng Wu likes to discover the different historical and social layers of a city through artistic discovery. She strongly believes in the importance of making our cities more green and more resilient with regard to climate change.

Our Community-Voting has decided. These are the eight winners of the CITYMAKERS Virtual-Walk Project. Congratulations! They have one these unique souvenirs…

CITYMAKERS- Freund Shi Ming – freier Journalist – begleitet das STADTMACHER Netzwerk seit seiner Gründung vor 5 Jahren. In einem Gespräch mit Katja Hellkötter spricht Shi Ming über aktuelle Tendenzen der Stadtentwicklung in China und den deutsch- chinesischen Urbanisierungsaustausch.

In this interview Knut Wimberger – systemic thinker and social entrepreneur, who has lived in China for 20 years – talks with us about current challenges of society, the social entrepreneurship ecosystem and his vision for the future of living.

When looking for an expert on the combined topics of environment, education and China, the name Dr. Eva Sternfeld 艾娃博士 pops up at the top of the list. CITYMAKERS has the good fortune of regularly counting Eva among the experts and partners in its network, where she was involved in the focus group “Urban Farming”. While Eva spent her time in quarantine in Qingdao earlier this month, we took the chance to interview her again.

Eve Nagel works as a Project Manager for the Robert Bosch Stiftung, in the program area International Understanding and Cooperation. In this interview, she reflects on the progress the CITYMAKERS network has made over the years – and adds her ideas on for where the journey could be further headed.

Die Landschaft der Stakeholder in der deutsch-chinesischen Urbanisierungs- kooperation ist dicht. Nicht immer per se nur des Kooperierens wegen macht kooperieren Sinn, aber manchmal “liegt es auf der Hand”, die Ressourcen zu bündeln, vor allem dann, wenn Ziele und Zielgruppen ähnlich sind. So im Falle von URBANIXX und STADTMACHER. Für Herbst 2020 haben wir uns einen gemeinsamen Workshop vorgenommen.

2014 kam eine Vorhut von Stadtmachern in den Genuss eines Spaziergangs mit Dr. Eduard Kögel, der uns der Suche nach der Vision der lebenswerten Stadt durch das Märkische Viertel führte. Anlässlich des CITYMAKERS-Virtual Walk Projektes, der Aktualität des Themas, und nicht zuletzt aus “Stadtmacher-Freundschaft” mit Eduard Kögel, der uns in diesem Projekt immer wieder begleitet hat, haben wir diese Erinnerung noch einmal “hervorgeholt”.

Song Qun is an architect, artist and curator from Xian, the founder of “Bendi 本地- Local Life”, a 3,000 sqm large cultural space for the contemporary presentation of “Urban Memory”. His approach is beyond mainstream understanding of heritage in China, advocating for cultural memory as the story of everyday life of people and their objects. What  impressed him most in Berlin was the Jewish Museum. “The openness of Berliners towards the history of their city is admirable, and I learned a lot from the fact that each museum is writing the history of the city in its own way.”

Die dena war mit ihrem Eco-Cities-Programm und einer Delegation von Bürgermeistern bereits zur Auftaktkonferenz von CITYMAKERS 2015 in Berlin dabei. Weitere Koooperationsgelegenheiten folgten: Eine Exkursion in Freiburg, eine Multi-Stakeholder Konferenz in Beijing, das Keep Wuhan Walking Projekt. Erfahren Sie mehr über den CITYMAKERS-Partner dena, dessen Projekte in China und die bisherige Zusammenarbeit mit CITYMAKERS.

Meet Dr. Eva Sternfeld, who has observed the tremendous transformation of Chinese cities for over 40 years, since spending her first study trip in China in 1979. She thinks that not just city planners and architects decide the fate of a city, but that the socio-economic development, the cultural and political impact as well as the environmental factors all play their role in creating livable cities. Bringing them together is the real challenge.

Was für eine Stadt ist Wuhan? Auf diese Frage eine Antwort zu geben, ist nicht leicht, andererseits gibt es aber auch sehr viele Antworten. Ist sie das Zentrum Chinas? Ein historisch bedeutender Ort? Eine strategische Industriebasis? Eine Stadt am Wasser, von der Schifffahrt geprägt? Das Chicago des Ostens? Eine äußerst populistische Stadt? Chinas größte Provinzstadt? Heimat der heißen Gǎnmiàn-Nudeln? Ursprung von Flüchen mit Lokalkolorit? Chinas heimliche Hauptstadt des Punks?

Die globale Epidemie Covid-19 hat mit Wuhan als vermutlichem Ursprungsort eine Stadt ins Zentrum des weltweiten Interesses gestellt, deren bedeutende Stellung im globalen kosmopolitischen Städtegeflecht des frühen 20. Jahrhundert im Westen nahezu in Vergessenheit geraten ist.