"A city that has a lot to rethink" - International students present their ideas about Frankfurt (Oder)
"There's a lot to rethink in the city. It has enormous potential," was the conclusion of one of the participants in the Viadrinicum summer school, which took place from 16 to 31 September 2025 at Zukunftsplatz near the border bridge. 35 students from 16 countries explored the history, architecture, culture and people of Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice and developed their own projects - both theoretical considerations and utopias on paper as well as practical works such as wooden furniture and installations and film documentaries.
The outside view of the twin city from the participants, who were there for the first time, proved to be particularly valuable. Many noticed, for example, an oversupply of parking spaces in the city centre. Their suggestion: more green spaces and opportunities for people to meet in order to improve the quality of stay and life for everyone.
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The "mental map", a cognitive map of the city centre, on which the summer school participants recorded their impressions and emotions - positive, negative, neutral and mixed feelings - was interesting for long-established twin city residents. This method offers urban planners valuable insights into the way people perceive, use and orientate themselves in urban spaces. The mental map of the twin city showed many positive aspects, but also areas with negative connotations, such as around the Magistrale, as well as some mixed feelings in the area of the city bridge.
At the end of the summer school, in addition to the urban planning projects and the wooden furniture and installations, several short film documentaries were presented that were created during the two-week summer school. Projected onto a wall at Zukunftsplatz, guests were able to watch a short film about three women in their allotment gardens in Frankfurt. A Viadrinicum team had visited them on site and portrayed them in the documentary against the backdrop of the allotment garden tradition in Germany.
The Viadrinicum Summer School took place for the eleventh time in 2025. Geographically, the focus is on countries of the Eastern Partnership and, more broadly, Central and Eastern Europe. Methodologically, the concept combines academic and non-academic formats and promotes dialogue between different types of knowledge from academia, civil society and the arts. This year's participants came from 16 countries, including Armenia, India, Brazil, Japan, Kosovo, Ukraine and Italy. In academic, artistic and participatory formats, they explored the topic of "Urban Dis/locations. Ruptures and Reimaginations", they explored ruptures in the urban fabric. In several workshops, the participants explored the twin city and developed their own projects and ideas from a documentary and urban planning perspective.
Ulrike Polley (translated with DeepL)
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