"Sauber Linz!" (Linz: Clean) - A city under close scrutiny
With a series of workshops entitled „Sauber Linz!“ (Linz: clean!) Linz09 has moved the topics of cleanliness and security, key issues of the capital’s municipal policies, to centre stage in the public debate.
‘Linz is sprucing itself up for 2009 and is tempted to exchange its identity as an industrial town for that of an ultramodern, painstakingly clean city of culture and technology’. This is the summary as formulated by Wolfgang Fuchs, who was head of project. The series of workshops, which took place from 1st to 4th October, was conducted by Basurama, a group of Spanish architects, who have focused since 2001 on the topic of garbage in the widest sense of the word, including visual and acoustic pollution; the name of the group with its two components of span. basura (= garbage) and panorama is programmatic.Coming as they did from outside, the guests looked at Linz with unbiased eyes. What did they see? ‘Linz is a town with very high standards of cleanliness. It follows the international trend of harnessing cleanliness and security in order to keep public space manageable.’ In collaboration with local architects, artists and sociologists they highlighted the subtle mechanisms that are at work in planning and shaping urban spaces. The results of the workshops were the subject of a public presentation at the end of each of the four days.
