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Interview Dr. Kaltenbrunner – Open Spaces
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WDR Pavillon Köln

Is outdoors the new indoors?

There has been a lot of talk about “public spaces” over the last few months – resulting in new ideas for how they could be used and increased awareness of quality. As a company whose products redefine the boundaries between indoor and outdoor spaces, we asked ourselves, what happens when private and public interests meet under new assumptions? We spoke to Dr. Robert Kaltenbrunner to find out. As an architect, city planner and author, he has been studying the relationship between society and urban spaces for many years.

Interview

Dr. Robert Kaltenbrunner

What constitutes a public space to you, what are its characteristics, and what differentiates it from other spaces that we use in the city?

DR. ROBERT KALTENBRUNNER
DR. ROBERT KALTENBRUNNER

“There is a great quote by the French philosopher Roland Barthes: ‘What does the lover think of love?’, he asks, only to answer his own question. ‘In short, nothing. He wants to know what it is, but because he is timid, he only perceives its existence and not its essence.’ It’s similar with public spaces. We live in them, but do not reflect on what defines them. Rather, we take them for granted.

Currently, public spaces are receiving a lot of attention – including in a socio-political sense – and yet they remain strangely undefined. Often, they are accompanied by false expectations, especially romantic and nostalgic ones.

I believe that public spaces are not a place of pleasure and harmony. Rather, they are a place of quarrel, provocation and excess – but without these, there would be no such thing as urbanity.”

You wrote about the effects of the coronavirus crisis: “An individual’s real freedom is in the public space.” Could you explain that in more detail?

WDR Pavillon Cologne, Germany, in the evening light
WDR Pavillon Cologne, Germany, in the evening light
The WDR Pavilion opens up the formerly deserted Hanns-Hartmann-Platz to users. With a gastronomic offer and great openness, among other things through generous bi-folding door, the square becomes attractive and lively. (Architecture: design team c (formerly CORSMEIER), Cologne)

“In the times of coronavirus, the significance of public space as the sole, dependable counterpart to private living has become evident. I think that certain spatial categories, such as home or office, are functionally very narrow and rigid. In order to work to their full advantage, public spaces and open spaces need to be the exact opposite. They should be multifunctional and repurposable.”

What does it mean for public spaces when private activities shift?

Multi-purpose building with bi-folding door made of copper sheeting
Multi-purpose building with bi-folding door made of copper sheeting
The multi-purpose building with a room-high bi-folding door made of pre-weathered copper sheeting can be used in different ways. It thus gives the village square in Barbing, Bavaria, back its function as a meeting point and place of communication. (Architecture: Querluft Architekten, Straubing)

“Regardless of the current situation, growing individualisation has long found a central forum in public spaces. Different sub-cultures and groups adopt public spaces and change them. Many of these movements claim their own public space for themselves.

Whether it’s a rave, urban gardening, pallet furniture, reclaim the streets, or urban pioneers: movements like these – including anarchic ones – really do seem to herald a kind of social change. The balance between individual autonomy and social order is currently being shifted on the urban stage.”

How should public spaces be designed in order to provide maximum freedom?
Mehrzweckgebäude mit Glas-Faltwand am Dorfplatz
Mehrzweckgebäude mit Glas-Faltwand am Dorfplatz

“I believe that understanding how multi-layered and contradictory different interests can be helps to set limits when designing a public space. It’s not only about making the city or space into an aesthetic experience.

Architects and planners can heavily rely on the purpose of a space to guide them. But how their designs and structures are actually used, that is up to the user. This often differs from the intended purpose.

There is not necessarily a relationship between freedom and design. However, while “spatial programmes” are unable to eliminate deficits and problems in urban life in and of themselves, they can be used strategically for the benefit of society.

It could even be said that the reimagination of public spaces and renewed interest in them is a positive side-effect of the current situation, not only in planner circles but throughout the whole of society and the political sphere.”