Idea and concept

International Building Exhibition Urban Redevelopment Saxony-Anhalt 2010

The IBA Urban Redevelopment 2010 is turning all of Saxony-Anhalt into a laboratory for the city of tomorrow. Since 1989, the state has lost about 17 percent of its population – and the decline has not yet stopped. Saxony-Anhalt thus stands for a social presence that has also arrived in other states already and for a future that many others are expecting. Shrinkage and population decline introduce entirely new challenges for urban development and design. A farsighted urban renewal, which responds to the vacancy rate and financial emergencies with creative impulses, is the path that the state of Saxony-Anhalt embarked upon in 2002 when it initiated the International Building Exhibition Urban Redevelopment Saxony-Anhalt 2010.

Since then, urban planners, architects, citizens and representatives from politics and administration have tested new tools of urban renewal in 19 cities affected by demographic change. Each city pursued their own individual theme and developed their own profile. The result is not the end of the decline, but its positive turnaround with the help of smaller, streamlined structures – for less is the future.

Interview with the Architect Floris Alkemade and the urban planner Andreas Billert about new tools of Urban Development. // Film: Henry Mertens, 2009. 13:29 mn.

Less is Future. 19 Cities – 19 Themes

In 2002, the state of Saxony-Anhalt commissioned the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the Saxony-Anhalt State Development Company (SALEG) to prepare and stage the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Urban Redevelopment 2010. The IBA Urban Redevelopment 2010 is the first building exhibition to focus on a whole Federal State.

From April 9 to October 16, 2010, local results will be presented in each of the 19 IBA Cities in Saxony-Anhalt – in exhibitions, tours, activities and much more. The central exhibition in the Bauhaus building in Dessau-Roßlau features an overview of the entire process. More than 100 events offer citizens, guests and visitors the opportunity for discussion and exploration of the subject.