Year and location

Zuffenhausen, Stuttgart, 2011
 

Premises - Waggons am
Nordbahnhof Artist Community &
Stuttgart 21

The Waggons am Nordbahnhof

Artist Community was active

since 1999 near the North city

Station of Stuttgart.In 20

non-operating train waggons

and an empty house nearby,

the artists developed step by

step the favourable conditions

for living and creating. Most of

the waggons functioned as

houses with personal studios,

but some were modified and

converted according to their

necessities: one became a café, 

another one a recording studio,

one was turned into a store, two

were playing their role as clubs

or other functions according to

the event. Between the

waggons, a stage was built for

the concerts, festivals and the

other performances that took

place regularly with the

approval of the city

administration and Deutsche

​Bahn. The Waggons am 

Nordbahnhof Artist community

was evicted in February

because of the Stuttgart 21

project, as the area was part of

the new planning as a residential and mixed area. In

spite of the constant activity

and the benefits that the

community has brought to the

city in the last 10 years, a new

planning for the artist

community was not included in

the Stuttgart 21 program,

leaving the relocation as the

duty of the local administration.

​

Stuttgart 21 is an urban development project in Stuttgart, as part of the tuttgart/Augsburg new and upgraded railway

project in Baden/Wurttemberg

and Bayern. It consists in the modernization of the railway

infrastructure of the city’s

Central Station and the Paris –

Stuttgart – Wien – Budapest

connection, by replacing the

tracks and platforms of the

station with new infrastructure

mainly located underground.

The project also proposes

changing the direction of the

railways from N-S to V-E and

also, the planning of new 

residential area, working areas,

services, a new library and the

reorganizing of green spaces,

public areas and streets.



New Site Proposal - Zuffenhausen



My proposal for the new community is the site in

Zuffenhausen. The district is

mainly industrial, it is the headquarter of Porsche industry and has a strong

developing tendency emphasized by the inauguration of the new Porsche

Museum in 2009. The site is

located at the conjunction of the

industrial and the residential 

areas of the district. The

protected site hosts the building

of the ex- Cooperative of

Economy and Consuming and

the Big Bakery. The two

buildings, built in 1928 are the

last remaining Bauhaus

buildings in Stuttgart. The

Cooperative of Economy and

Consuming had the role of

providing its members with 

goods bought or produced by

the cooperative and was

administered by its members –

therefore the members of the

Zuffenhausen community.

During time, this building lost its

functional necessity, the left

wing being completely 

abandoned. The eastern side

now hosts houses for East-

European workers from the

factories in the industrial area of

Zuffenhausen. The Big Bakery

was reconverted in 2003 in a

Recycling Center for electronics. 

Also, an important characteristic

of this site is its location at even

distance between the civical

center of Stuttgart and the

center of the nearby city

Ludwigsburg – unversitary city

that hosts the most important

film and performance art 

university in Germany.