Alanus University and Montag Stiftung Urbane Räume Sign Cooperation Agreement

The foundations of public welfare-oriented real estate and urban development are to be anchored in teaching.

Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences and Montag Stiftung Urbane Räume will work even more closely together in the future. Yesterday, Thursday, board member Johanna Debik for the foundation as well as Rector Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Pieper and Prof. Dr. Florian Kluge for the university signed a cooperation agreement with the aim of pooling their respective activities for public welfare-oriented real estate and urban development. This gives students in the Department of Architecture the opportunity to contribute to the foundation’s practical projects, research them, and use them for their studies. In return, they will contribute their ideas and research findings to the foundation’s work.

“The projects of Montag Stiftung Urbane Räume offer our students exciting real-world laboratories in different districts with diverse challenges and questions. In this way, we are making our degree program even more practice-oriented,” explains Prof. Dr. Florian Kluge, Dean of the Department of Architecture, describing Alanus University’s motivation for the collaboration.

“The young and fresh perspectives that students bring to our work are immensely valuable to us,” reports Johanna Debik, board member of Montag Stiftung Urbane Räume. “Our projects will benefit enormously from the new impulses and ideas. And supporting young talent is also important to us—so that our projects can have a lasting impact. This makes the cooperation a clear win-win-win situation for the university, the students, and the foundation.”

One place where things will soon become concrete is the Dransdorf district of Bonn and the Alte Stadtgärtnerei located there. The foundation’s next development project is soon to emerge here in cooperation with Neue Stadtgärtnerei e. V. Before that, the site will be opened from 18 to 24 September 2023 for an artistic staging. Under the direction of Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren, students will design and implement various temporary interventions. The focus is not on specific planning or construction intentions, but on curiosity about this place and the activation of civic engagement. On 24 September 2023, the interested public will be invited to get to know and explore the site in guided small groups.

In addition to practical work, the two cooperation partners plan to expand and further develop their previous joint activities such as lectures, publications, and specialist events—both at Alanus University’s locations and on the campus of the Montag Foundations.

Contact for press inquiries:
+49 (0)2222 9321 -1942 / -1944
presse.hochschule@alanus.edu