Creation: Graz / 2016
Book presentation: Stadtteilbüro Griesviertel, 2 November 2016 & Haus der Architektur, 21 December 2016
Team: Adina F. Camhy / Robin Klengel / Coline Robin / Markus Waitschacher
In the summer 2016, we collected 100 views on Griesplatz, one of the main square of Graz. Here is an extract of the book and an introduction to the project:
« A city is more than a simple collection of houses and streets. It arises in the eyes of its residents and is full of meanings, memories, images and stories. A city’s places can therefore take on a completely different appearance depending on one’s view of them. The same location might be seen as a place of fear or a favourite hangout; important or insignificant; full of hope or falling into ruin; a new homeland or a symbol of a lost past.
The Griesplatz in Graz is one of those places. People with different backgrounds share this space, which lies at the intersection of many different ways of life – and yet it is not really clear how it is essentially constituted. What does the Griesplatz actually look like? Where does it start, where does it end? What things are important to the people here?
This book is a collection of 100 subjective views of the Griesplatz (so-called mental maps) that have been drawn by people who regularly frequent it. What those people express in their maps and what they explained to us was neither purely positive nor negative, but a bit of both; it was mostly ambiguous and sometimes contradictory.
This book is an opportunity to see the Griesplatz from a new and different perspective. The juxtaposition of these very different maps, stories and perspectives results in a complex collective image of the Griesplatz. How do different ways of life exist here alongside each other, in opposition or in harmony?
How do categories like “own” and “foreign”arise? What are feelings of fear or security based on? And why do people evaluate the movements and transformations of a city in such different ways? »
Coline Robin 