Bilder der Zukunft (Depicting the Future)
There Was a Time When the Future Looked Better
How can we be expected to face the future if we have no idea what it is going to look like? Unfortunately, it is creative imagination of this kind that is lacking in politics and in society today. The initiative “Bilder der Zukunft e.V.” has therefore made it a mission to create these visions – And this is its sole purpose.
How will future generations live? What will consumption look like in tomorrow’s world? And how will it affect our infrastructure? The initiative “Bilder der Zukunft” is addressing these and many other questions. When attempting to answer, there are no taboos; utopias are very much encouraged and there are no limits set on the creativity. It is not about solutions here, but pictures that may one day become reality. In various projects, Scholz & Volkmer, together with their partners and forward thinkers, tackle the issues confronting us in the future.
“Pictures have always transformed visions into a yearning for something and helped to realize utopian dreams. Fifty years ago, utopian dreams envisioned technical advancement. What is very noticeable today is that we don’t have the vision of a social utopia.”
Harald Welzer, social psychologist and Bilder Der Zukunft e.V. partner.
As long as 100 years ago, Bauhaus was already developing new forms of living together and dedicating its architecture and town planning to a new era. The Bauhaus campus in Berlin offers room for ideas for a society that is continuously changing. As part of this, the Tiny House movement, initiated by Van Bo Le –Mentzel, deals with the questions of how to coexist in an urban environment. The focus here is mainly on the issue of living space. How much space should we and do we want to take up for living, working and playing in the future? In a small world with various Tiny Houses, visitors can discover new forms of togetherness.
This concept was taken further with a scaled-down Christmas experience. In very few square metres there was enough room for what really matters at Christmas time: Friends, conversation and music.
Visions of a better city: Virtual reality can also help to depict what the imagination sees.
Visions of a better city: Virtual reality can also help to depict what the imagination sees.
How much space does a city offer its residents? And how do we actually want to use it? Do we want to extend the dominance of cars on the roads or do we want to take back some of that space? The Small Art Festival in Wiesbaden is dedicated to this question – and the concept of re-designating the roads. Originally planned as places for meeting up and networking, roads exist to do more than just get you from A to B. They are the warp and weft of urban fabric and the space they offer can also be utilized for celebrating events, for hanging out and making conversation.
Every utopia needs pictures. They illustrate our ideas and guide us into the future we have imagined. For this reason, Scholz & Volkmer encourages artists to depict them for us. Depicting the future was also part of a Scholz & Volkmer Christmas event whereby people could contribute their own ideas of the city of the future and have them brought to life by illustrators.
