A mobile community kitchen brings people together!

New cooperation between Alanus University and Open Embassy successfully launched!

The Institute for Process Architecture in the Department of Architecture at Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences and Open Embassy gGmbH of the Montag Foundations will now work closely together. Together, they aim to develop the former American Club in Bonn on the Rhine into Open Embassy | doing democracy and thereby send a strong signal in support of collaborative design processes.

As part of the cooperation, the transformation process of the former American Club—from an unused listed monument into a vibrant place of co-creation—is to be made visible and tangible over the coming years under the title “Open Construction Site” through different artistic approaches within an open research process.
This will give students the opportunity to contribute to this prototypical development project and make use of this experience in their studies. In return, they will contribute their creative ideas and insights to the project’s development. The focus is on curiosity about the site and the activation of engagement through artistic interventions. Students can carry out research, develop visions, implement spatial interventions, or create foundations for discussion, thereby helping to inspire and reflect on this pilot project.

The cooperation agreement was signed on 17/09/2024 by the new Rector of Alanus University, Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Maschke, the Executive Board member of the Carl Richard Montag Support Foundation, Dr. Bernd Bach, the project lead at Alanus University, Junior Professor Miriam Hamel, and the Managing Director of Open Embassy gGmbH, Dr. Nina Lemmens, in the presence of the entire Open Embassy project team and a group of architecture students during a ceremonial event on the campus of the Montag Foundations.

As the first format within the framework of the new cooperation, an experimental lab entitled “At the Table” took place from 17 to 22 September 2024. Together, participants explored and activated the still unused Open Embassy.

Participants included master’s students from the Department of Architecture at Alanus University as well as master’s students and doctoral candidates from the departments of Business and Law, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering at the University of Mannheim and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology as part of the Bronnbacher Scholarship – Cultural Competence for Future Leaders run by the Cultural Circle of German Business.

The focus was on a creative anticipation of the planned centerpiece of the future Open Embassy: the community kitchen. In a collaborative design process, used and recycled materials were employed in the construction of a mobile community kitchen on site. During the week, the mobile community kitchen established itself as a social space on the construction site.

The result was a modular mobile kitchen that brings people together both at the Open Embassy and, as a mobile vehicle, at other locations in the city, making its message of collaborative design processes tangible. The kitchen was used in an initial test run in the outdoor area of the Bonn Art Museum and at the end of the project week on Bonn’s Münsterplatz, where it became a place of encounter and shared meals for many citizens.

The kitchen is intended to support everyday catering needs on the Open Embassy construction site. At the same time, it fosters the diverse artistic research processes taking place there and creates social moments at various locations throughout the city. In addition, the mobile kitchen symbolizes a tested example of co-creative appropriation and design processes between work and celebration. Through this kind of intervention, the collaborative process of appropriation, activation, and reinterpretation creates a model for “Do it together”!

BACKGROUND

OPEN EMBASSY | DOING DEMOCRACY
With Open Embassy, an open place is being created in the former American Club in Bonn on the Rhine where participation in democracy can be experienced in practice. The historically significant club from Bonn’s years as the capital once stood for the democratic development of the young Federal Republic of Germany and is now to be developed through civic engagement, culture, and art into a space for experimenting with the practical testing of democratic processes—according to the principle of “doing democracy.” At Open Embassy, ideas and formats are developed and tested in order to live democracy and further develop it in a solution-oriented and experimental way. To this end, Open Embassy is developing its own program with a regional, national, and international focus. It also offers its spaces to partner organizations for related activities and events.

INSTITUTE FOR PROCESS ARCHITECTURE
With the Institute for Process Architecture, the Department of Architecture at Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences has established a think tank for questions of process design in the context of architecture and the city, on the basis of which activities in research and artistic development projects are brought together. The institute strengthens the department’s networking in academia, professional practice, and the art scene and pools expertise for research activities. At the same time, the link between research and teaching is being intensified in order to give students in the Department of Architecture the opportunity to continue developing the field of process architecture, contribute to research projects, and engage in artistic development projects.

BRONNBACHER SCHOLARSHIP
The Bronnbacher Scholarship – Cultural Competence for Future Leaders was launched by the Cultural Circle of German Business in 2004 with the aim of fostering the cultural competencies of selected future leaders while they are still students and motivating them to assume social responsibility as later decision-makers. Guided by the principle “Cultural Competence for Future Leaders,” the Cultural Circle of German Business, through its Working Group on Cultural Education (AKB), offers future leaders new creative approaches to tackling professional challenges through its excellence program. This is because inspiration, creativity, intuition, and the ability to change perspective are prerequisites for successful and sustainable action in today’s worlds of business and academia. Since 2004, the University of Mannheim has been a cooperation partner in this established excellence program, and since 2017 the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has also joined. As part of the scholarship, master’s students and doctoral candidates in the fields of business and law, mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and engineering are given the opportunity to engage in dialogue with renowned artists for one year and become familiar with their ways of thinking and working.
From 2025, the program will bear the new name “Kulturkreis Scholarship.”

COOPERATION PARTNERS
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences
Department of Architecture, Institute for Process Architecture
Junior Professor Miriam Hamel, Professorship of Process Architecture
Jana Hortian

Montag Foundations / Open Embassy | doing democracy
Dr. Nina Lemmens, Managing Director of Open Embassy  | doing democracy

Cultural Circle of German Business
Bronnbacher Scholarship – Cultural Competence for Future Leaders
Konstantin Adamopoulos, Curator of the Bronnbacher Scholarship
Fabian Zimpel, Cultural Circle of German Business in BDI e.V.

CONTACT
Junior Professor Miriam Hamel
Junior Professor of Process Architecture
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences
T: +49 2222 93211407
E: miriam.hamel@alanus.edu                                         

Julija Lleshi
Communications Officer
Open Embassy | doing democracy
T: +49 (0) 228 267 16-631
E: j.lleshi@montag-stiftungen.de

Images: Ⓒ Yann Engelen – Department of Architecture, Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences