How can an increasingly urban society release its powers? Deve-loping its key theme COSMOPOLIS, IBA Hamburg demonstrates what the future of cooperation in the metropolis might look like.
Diversity opens up opportunities
The Elbe islands are already a cosmopolis today: they are home to people from more than one hundred nations. It is IBA Hamburg’s goal to adapt the city to the needs of its residents and to provide them with diverse opportunities for development. The focus is on the issue of whether and / or how social and cultural barriers within urban society and against the background of demographic change can be overcome by means of urban development and architecture and on how ethnic and cultural diversity can be transformed into strengths.
Model projects
The issue of education is a focal point imple-mented through the “Bildungsoffensive” (Education drive). This is a quest not only for new teaching approaches and concepts for improving the education situation in the strongly immigrant districts, it also facilitates the establishment of new, ground-breaking educational facilities, with the main focus on the networking of protagonists. However, the projects focussing on homes and lifestyles are also designed to demonstrate new paths towards the cosmopolitan city, and to ensure that people from all walks of life can live on the Elbe islands, because „home is where you stay“.
The “Kreatives Quartier Elbinsel” (Elbe Islands Creative Quarter) projects play an exemplary role in bringing art, culture, and the creative industry together with urban development. The IBA also attaches great importance to the promotion of local economies in that its projects include systematic measures reaching beyond employment initiatives in order to help the resident population gain qualifications.
