The urban space experiments of the Aarhus Festival often take their point of departure in local issues – with the aim of examining and testing temporary solutions that might, in the longer turn become permanent solutions to the benefit of the city. One of the focus points of the 2014 Aarhus Festival was the square in front of the main train station. The aim was to test some of the solutions that are devised in the local traffic plan 2020 to see what effect some of the farther reaching solutions might have. One of the pivotal points of the traffic plan is to limit the flow of car traffic in the southern part of downtown Aarhus. This was achieved during the festival by blocking the station square from through traffic.
Schonherr’s idea with the project was to look at the whole space as one coherent square defined by the surrounding buildings. To even out bumps in the terrain made for infrastructural purposes and to give the floor of the new urban space a uniform surface to clean it of unnecessary “noise”.
Additionally the idea was to create a new image of the space, diverting attention from the periphery of the square to the center - to enhance the pedestrian flow for visitors to the cultural nerve net of the city and to turn people’s attention away from the commercial center and towards the cultural axis of the city. Visually the furniture of the new square drew on inspiration from Bauhaus in order to create a poetic space based on the new surface and clear geometric elements instead of mere logistical considerations.
By transforming the floor of the urban space and the accompanying urban furniture we managed to create a new sense of space and direction for the city.
