LIMIT / less

Because of unlimited growth of urban space, our cities and our society were transformed into monotonous and totalitarian, yet highly complex structures. Former divided spaces became blurred and are lacking character. Can we answer this process with a new “architecture of the city” which sets limits instead of strengthening the city precincts?

The idea is to establish a generic megastructure which can solve all current abuses. The History of medieval european cities with its city walls proves the importance of city frontiers for a healthy city and nature. This border, the outline, which describes the district of the city and divides it from the land, receives a great importance. It is compressing the landscape and accelerates the typical experience of city life. „The city inside its own walls is culture, the source of all values. [...] Outside the city, in front of its gates, there is the Non-City, the land, the Anti-City, the desert of the forest.“ (Jacques Le Goff) The city centre of Stuttgart gets limited by a megastructural square of 2 km by 2 km. This square is split into 48 segments with each one being able to flexibly adapt to the requirement needed. Outside this megastructure, the urban space - which can’t develop a city block scheme due to the rising topography - is moved into the structure. Therefore, the redundant space can be reconquered by nature.This can reestablish Stuttgart’s description as “city between forests and vineyards”. Also, the former development as a car-friendly city overshadowed the premise of a people-friendly city. By absorbing the huge commuter traffic into car parks inside the structure and by banning the car from the city centre its urban space can recover. the free space of the city highway can be reused to revive the “Nesenbach” creek which is currently banned in ducts beneath the city. As Kant is saying, one constraint enables limitless negative freedom, which is a condition for positive freedom which then develops autonomy. This proposal can be seen as a socio-theoretical utopia which relies on social equality and freedom and is based on common property and collective problem solving. The communist proposal for the liberal city of Stuttgart is a deliberate provocation to show the urgent abuses of earlier city planning.