(Open) Archive for Urbanism – Exterior View

The exhibition _Open Archive for Urbanism,_ which was on view at the station urbaner kulturen in the spring of 2026, will continue over the summer with a window display. Works by Michele Galassi and Gertraude Pohl explore how built environments, architecture, and the city shape social participation, identity, and a sense of belonging. In his work, Michele Galassi captures uprooted communities, lives on the margins of society, and forms of collective resilience. His long-term projects address topics such as homelessness, social vulnerability, and inclusive theater. The window display features a work from Galassi's photo series _Die Winterreise_ (The Winter Journey), which was created in a Berlin shelter for formerly homeless people. The series explores questions of exclusion, conformity, and opportunities for people whose life paths diverge from societal norms. Through her "percent for art" projects, Gertraude Pohl helped shape the visual identity of many public buildings in the GDR. To this end, she developed comprehensive concepts for color, materials, and space, as well as a distinctive abstract formal language. The station urbaner kulturen now presents a series of her colorful murals created from modular concrete blocks: The playful messages—created between 1977 and 1986—on industrially built "Kinderkombinationen" (kindergarten) playgrounds in Berlin's Marzahn and Lichtenberg districts, as well as the freestanding partition walls made of double-sided precast concrete blocks, which served to separate residential neighborhoods from the street space in World War II-devastated Frankfurt/Oder.