Shrinking cities have pushed urban design and classical city planning to their limits. This new challenge requires new approaches in which the „hard“ tools of construction are joined by the „soft“ tools of political, social, cultural, and communicative interventions.
This book provides an international overview of experimental concepts for taking action in shrinking cities from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban construction, the media, performance, and art. The approaches range from artistic intercessions and self-empowerment projects to architectural and landscape interventions, and from strategies of media communication and city marketing to new legal regulations and utopian designs. A series of essays provides a critical discussion of both successful and failed projects of recent decades from such countries as the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Russia, and Japan. (English edition available ISBN 3-7757-1711-0)

Exhibition schedule:
Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, November 26, 2005-January 29, 2006

Projects featured (selection):
William Alsop, Gordon Matta-Clark, Crimson, Jeremy Deller, OMA, Cedric Price, Andreas Siekmann, Robert Smithson, Stalker, Superflex, O. M. Ungers