Zeitenwende
I really like the German term ‘Zeitenwende’ that can be translated as turning point but with the connotation that radical,
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I am Markus Appenzeller.
Cities are the most complex innovation we have been able to come up with: Most people live in cities. They are the bedrock of our culture and our economies. They are the hothouses of innovation, exchange en integration.
But – cities are also the biggest polluters and the biggest contributors to climate change. They are the zones of social conflict and of clash between diverging vested interested.
A lot – but not everything happens in cities, and their impact on the surrounding rural areas can be enormous. To me this is reason enough to focus on cities, their development and how we can improve them.
I do this in design and planning practice with MLA+, the office I founded and lead since more than 10 years, and I do this in education as the Dean of the Urbanism Department of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture.
There is more: cities are also a mindset, ways of thinking and actors in that a phenomenon that can be criticized. My city thinking has become a way of building the theoretical and rhetorical underlay to the vocabulary of the designer and educator.
I am happy to share these thoughts with others to help them develop a better understanding of cities themselves. I do this through regular lectures all over the world on topics that relate to the design work and the thinking. And I do this as adviser to city and business leaders.
THE DAILY URBAN DOSE is a summary of my activities and my thinking outside the daily practice of MLA+. It is not another website of the company. It supports what MLA+ does, but occasionally also reveals the contradictions and the conflicts spatial designers are presented with in their daily practice. It responds to current questions and debates, but it also looks ahead to reveal what is to come.
If you want to know more about me and my thinking or if you are interested in collaboration, then please do not hesitate and get in touch.
Should you require different or more information, then please
email me or send me a message
I really like the German term ‘Zeitenwende’ that can be translated as turning point but with the connotation that radical,
Recently, Germany has been discussing new standards for the size of parking spaces. The reason: the old ones do not
In 2018 I organized a study trip to Moscow with students from the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. They all felt
Flight shaming has become a new sport among those wanting to change the world for the better. In their eyes
When in 1910 Adolf Loos gave his lecture and subsequently published his essay “Ornament and Crime” it was a reaction
If you ask ordinary people but also many architects or urbanists what measures should be taken to make cities ‘greener’
BEYOND PEAK INDIFFERENCE #1 – I am currently organizing moderating a conversation series “Beyond Peak Indifference” which puts climate change