Professor Guenter Zamp Kelp

 Professor for building-planning  and spaceforming

Title of presentation : Metaphors in global urbanities

Tim e is a not hingness, as long as one does not  recount it , I f we dont penetrate time with vivid metaphors and convert it into the story of our own life, time will freeze to a physical void, an excess of senseless dur at ion.“  Cit at ion by Paul Ricoeur   Metaphoric architecture, as a tool to introduce  identity, is also an element to create  consciousness for the urban fabrics on the global surface. Of course not each corner of architecture can transport a metaphoric message, but the strategic introduction of narrative elements, which create urban points of significance  and public spaces of atmosphere, are media for a better understanding of urban conditions and insofar  for a better quality of life. If a building explains its own function, for instance in form of a timespiral as the < Neanderthal Museum > near Düsseldorf does, or if it explains the position of its abandonment in the context of the local social situations, like the the  inclined tower of a Kunsthalle in Mainz, or like the sailform of the < House in front of the Wind >, in the Rheinharbour Düsseldorf, meaningfull architecture gives the opportunity to introduce relation between  urbanity and its users . Furthermore the connection between nature and the urban field, the design of climate controlled areas, like < Oasis Nr. 7 > on the facade of the Friderizianum 1972 in Kassel, Germany at the documenta 5,  is an important topic in the context of metaphoric strategies and the understanding of an upcoming second nature, based on converted natural elements, returning to urban civilization.