The shape of knowledge redistribution within planning cultures

Abstract

With the beginning of the 21st century a series of large-scale urban development projects (LUDPs) were planned alongside the transformation or modernization of federal railway stations in Vienna. Herein, in October 2012 the City of Vienna together with the landowner set the course for a telling modified urban development project: the new general concept for the former railway station Wien Nordbahnhof. Just a stone’s throw away from the city’s center a new generation of citizens will find its home close or within the typological setting of an experimental superstructure, that is one of today’s biggest inner-city transformation zones, originally called the future city (“Stadt der Zukunft”). According to the city planners’ intentions the Nordbahnhof will be finished until the year of 2025 after a development process of more than three decades and a multifaceted process of public participation. The long period of development led to illuminating different imaginations of the future city and to a particular materialization of the shift of planning ideology into urban form, which accentuates a dialectical process of transformation. This paper focuses on crucial acts of resistance playing a role for the interplay of democracy and innovation within the transformation process in question.