Oswald Mathias Ungers and the Concept of the Open City: Grünzug Süd and the Beginnings of Ungers’ Urban Thinking

Abstract

In 1962 the German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers submitted his proposal for the competition Grünzug Süd. The project, which is an urban planning study on the reconstruction of a southern district of the city of Cologne, was the beginning of Ungers’ engage[1]ment with questions concerning urban planning. After submitting the project, Ungers continued working on the design for three more years, evolving his design methodology and delving into the field of urban planning. Thus, the project plays a pivotal role in the evolution of Ungers’ design thinking. He gained international recognition for his seminal projects of the 1970s, above all The City in the City. Berlin: A Green Archipelago, but the concepts he applied in these projects have their origin in the work on Grünzug Süd during the first half of the 1960s. Investigating the genesis of Ungers’ urban planning projects means also to investigate his connection to members of Team 10, with whom Ungers collaborated from 1964 onwards. This text will carve out correlations between Grünzug Süd and projects conceived by Alison and Peter Smithson at the same time, thereby shedding light on urban planning concepts which are still relevant today. The projects are not only case studies for the interplay between architecture and urban planning in the development of new and existing city quarters, but also for a thorough analysis – and thus understanding – of the urban environment, meaning the built and unbuilt condition of an urban context planners engage with.