Erbe und städtische Zukünfte im Zeitalter des Climate Urbanism

In response to climate change, urban futures are currently being imagined that foresee a fundamental renewal of the lifestyles, modes of work and infrastructures of cities. The essay focuses on these attempts to conceive new urban futures and asks how they can be productively set in relation to heritage practices. The city of the past, i.e. urban heritage, is always a product of the present. The choice of what to retain and the reasons given are selective and result from processes of negotiation within society. As Gerhard Vinken was able to demonstrate clearly in Zone Heimat (2010), the ‘Old Town’ must be understood not as a witness to history, but essentially as a product of modernity. But how do heritage practices relate to practices of future-making? What commonalities and connections are discoverable? The essay posits that the Old Town conceived as product and the imagined city of the future are in part the result of the same mechanisms, and that they are also mutually determining. Parallels are recognizable both in terms of the claims that are made for the authenticity of material substance, and in regard to the progressive homogenization of the city’s visual image; in both areas, staging and marketing contribute decisively to the concentration of narratives and the circulation of influential images. This is illustrated in the second part of the essay with reference to examples from news media reporting. First, however, the opening sections address a number of conceptual aspects of the relationship between built heritage and future-oriented action