72 Hour Urban Action - Stuttgart 2012

120 participants aged between 20 and 45 from 12 countries, 10 teams, 72 hours: these are the key components of a festival that took place for the first time in Israel in 2010 and is now being brought to Stuttgart in 2012 by the Kunstverein Wagenhallen e.V. This marathon of practical skills, art, architecture and city planning stretching over three days and nights has a compelling idea at its heart: bringing the speed of construction in line with the thinking behind it. This entails finding creative solutions to ten different assignments in public spaces over a period of 72 hours under some quite extraordinary conditions: all the participants live together in the container camp, with each team also working closely with the residents of the districts in and for which the interventions are taking place. All of this takes place in full public view, as Stuttgarters can follow 8 different routes to find out what’s happening in their city. Aside from being exciting for all those involved, the project also serves as a basis for discussion between various different parties: construction as an urban discourse in which everyone’s opinion is asked for.

By the end, it’s not just about the winning team, a big closing party and an open studio day, but also about new objects in public spaces which are taken on and used by those that live in them. This provides practical food for thought for the city against the backdrop of the Stuttgart 21 debate as well as for the Wagenhallen area in particular, which has come into the focus of attention as one of Stuttgart’s creative centres. Yet above all, it is new networks that are being created here: between citizens and their living spaces, between city planners, artists, tradespeople and academics, between the participants themselves and last but not least between the German and Israeli initiators of the project. 72 HOUR URBAN ACTION thus transcends individual editions and locations to bring together the creative scenes of the countries and cities involved to form an international pool of different players, ideas and projects. 

The Kunstverein Wagenhallen e.V. is carrying out the 72 HOUR URBAN ACTION Stuttgart 2012 festival from July 11 to 14 2012 in collaboration with 72 Hour Urban Action in Tel Aviv, Israel with the support of the Stuttgart city planning office. The project as a whole stretches from July 1 to 31, bringing together 120 participants from 12 countries in ten teams, with each participant being selected in advance based on their previous work in construction, art or the humanities. These participants plan and implement construction interventions in public spaces over a period of 72 hours based around 10 assignments. These assignments were themselves conceived during a preparatory workshop organised by the German-Israel planning team in 2011.

Get Ready For Stuttgart 2012

72 Hour Urban Action | Episode 2 | Stuttgart 2012