Shrinking Cities---------------------------------------------------------------------------PRESS RELEASE/PRESS NOTICE(not to be published before january 16th 2004)--------------------------------------------------------------------------International Ideas Competition 2004
Shrinking Cities – Reinventing the City

Whether in the USA, Russia or China, whether in South Africa, Germany orKazakhstan: shrinking cities are everywhere. Massive population and joblosses convulse neighbourhoods, cities and regions. Hundreds of thousands ofbuildings stand empty, infrastructures collapse, urban life erodes.
The shrinking of cities is an involuntary process. Attempts to date to shapeor guide it have been inadequate. Often, they have failed because the inherited instruments of city planning and urban development tend to be ineffectual in this context — assuming they are even available. This calls into question our established understanding of the city and of urban development.
Shrinking Cities is a project initiated by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes(Federal Cultural Foundation, Germany). In january 2004, the project, in cooperation with the architecture journal archplus and the journal domus, will
announce an international and interdisciplinary competition, which has beenendowed with altogether € 120,000. Its objective is to identify innovative
approaches capable of qualifying the urban transformations associated withthe phenomena of shrinkage and to develop new ideas about the city based on
the specific qualities of shrinkage itself. Might a hidden potential be
harboured within the undesigned or the unplanned — even a utopian one?
The competition is interdisciplinary and experimental in orientation. Projects may range from the smallest physical intervention all the way to plans
for large-scale regional development, and may entail the recasting of legal
norms or encompass novel forms of urban communication. A project may take theform of social critique or even a political utopia, designed to be incorporated into the physical or communicative space of the city.
In order to tap into new fields of action, representatives of the mostdiverse professions — organised into interdisciplinary teams — are beinginvited to compete: anthropologists, architects, artists, economists, directors, graphic designers, landscape architects, lawyers, media designers,sociologists, stage designers and urban planners, as well as local initiatives. (Students are excluded.)
Registration for participation is possible until April 15, 2004 (please see
under www.shrinkingcities.com). The deadline for the submission of projectideas is April 30, 2004. At the end of a two-stage process, the jury will
select 12 works for further elaboration. The competition works will be published in detail in the architectural journals archplus (Germany) and domus(Italy), and prizewinners will be featured in an international exhibition andaccompanying catalogue.

-2-Jury members include artist & architect Azra Aksamja (Sarajevo/Princeton),graphic designer Ruedi Baur (Paris), cultural studies researcher Regina
Bittner (Dessau), architect and urban researcher Stefano Boeri (Milan),architect Anne Lacaton (Paris) and art theoretician Georg Schöllhammer(Vienna).
The territories of the competition comprise four urban regions: Detroit(USA), Halle/Leipzig (D), Ivanovo (RUS) and Liverpool/Manchester (GB), eachof which has already served as a case study for an international analysis
performed in the framework of the 3-year research and exhibition project
Shrinking Cities, launched fall 2002. Besides the journal archplus, project
partners include the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau as well as the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig.
For additional information about the project Shrinking Cities or about thecompetition: www.shrinkingcities.com.
We would be grateful if you would announce both the competition and the projectin the next issue of your publication.
We would be glad to respond to your queries, or to provide additional information or illustrated materials concerning the competition, as well as
information about the project as a whole.

Contact:Dr. Astrid Herbold
Media and Public Relations
P: +49 (0)30 81 82 19 06
F: +49 (0)30 81 82 19 12
press@shrinkingcities.com