(smow) Interview: Verein zur Förderung von Architektur, Engineering und Design in Stuttgart e.V

In our interview with the Stuttgart based designers Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub one of the more interesting quotes is the pair’s assertion that “…in Stuttgart people don’t talk so much about their success: an awful lot of creativity originates in Stuttgart but you don’t necessarily know that because no one talks about it.”

A quote which to be honest hasn’t left us in peace since….

One organisation who do talk about creativity in Stuttgart, 20 times a year to be precise, is the Verein zur Förderung von Architektur, Engineering und Design in Stuttgart e.V.

Or aed Stuttgart for short.

Established in 2004 aed Stuttgart is a platform for and by the Stuttgart creative community who, in addition to organising a programme of talks, visits and exhibitions, also organise the neuland Young Designer Competition, a competition that in 2013 celebrates its fourth edition. The jury have decided on the winners, the names however wont be announced until October.

To find out more about aed Stuttgart, Stuttgart creativity in general, but for all why they talk about Stuttgart creativity, we caught up with Silvia Olp and Frank Heinlein, two of aed Stuttgart’s founding members, and started, somewhat obviously, by asking about the background to the association,

Frank Heinlein: I work for Werner Sobek and in 2004 he was subject of an exhibition at the AEDES Gallery in Berlin, and, as is normal practice, clients, partners, suppliers etc were contacted to ask if they would be interested in sponsoring the exhibition. One of them was Alexander Hafner who answered that while he was more than happy to support the exhibition, he didn’t really understand why one Stuttgart company should support another Stuttgart company for an exhibition in Berlin.

Would it not be possible, desirable even, to organise such an event in Stuttgart?

And we thought, he’s not wrong!

Consequently we started considering our options, and, as ever in Germany when you want to develop something, the first step is to establish a Verein, an association, which we then did with the aim of, as it says in our Charter, “Supporting and stimulating the public perception of and discussion around architecture, engineering and design”

Our first event was staged on December 15th 2004 in the, at that time, still unopened Stuttgart Kunstmuseum, under the quasi-motto “We’re doing something. Who wants to be part of it?”  Before the event we were of the opinion that if thirty people turned up we’d be happy. In the end 300 came!

And then came the realisation, now we really will have to do something.

So we organised our first “proper” event, an exhibition looking at the new Stuttgart Trade Fair complex. That was staged in April 2005, was very well received and so we continued, and as next organised the first neuland design competition. And then things really took off and we currently have over 350 members and organise twenty events per year.

(smow)blog: Twenty events a year sounds a lot. Are there genuinely enough topics here in Stuttgart, or…

Frank Heinlein: We’ve never repeated a theme, and the reality is that there are more possible events that we could stage than we actually stage, and we have to be very strict with the twenty events per year, otherwise things could very quickly get out of control. One musn’t forget that the association is run voluntary and so we really have to limit ourselves.

(smow)blog: Which of course poses the question, why do you do such, what is your motivation, or perhaps your aim, with aed Stuttgart?

Silvia Olp: First I must say that for us it is important that we have an open structure where everyone who has an interest in our themes is welcome, be they active professionals, retired professionals, students or individuals from other walks of life who simply have an interest in, for example architecture or design and want to learn and experience more.

As an association we want to connect the Stuttgart creative community, we want to focus attention on the talents in the region and we want to present and discuss, current, interesting themes. And as a network that covers all facets of the creative industries we can and want to facilitate contact between the various branches, open doors, and encourage people to expand their horizons. For example we can help architects and graphic designers come together, or film professionals with fashion professionals or lawyers or landscape architects. And important is that we ourselves have no commercial interest, we’re just a platform.

(smow)blog: Stuttgart is home to an immense volume of creative talent, for all architects. The obvious question, why is that?

Silvia Olp: It is probably partly historical. Stuttgart has a long tradition in areas such as, for example, civil engineering or architecture, while through the industrial heritage in the region there is a strong tradition of design in terms of engineering, development or registering patents. And all that has resulted in an extreme concentration of creative competence in Stuttgart, something which naturally attracts not only other creative talents but also clients looking for something special.

Stuttgart  is, one could say, a city where creativity and design have always been at home.

Frank Heinlein: And one must add that a particular feature of Stuttgart is that in comparison to elsewhere there is not only a high creative competence here, but things also actually get done here. It’s not just talking about what you want to do or could do, in Stuttgart things actually get done!

(smow)blog: There must however be downsides to Stuttgart……

Frank Heinlein: We certainly don’t have the independent scene that a city such as Berlin can boast of, so the unkempt yards and former industrial buildings, this free space to work and experiment. In Stuttgart there are only very few such places, and that is certainly a weak point. However that of course forces people to start earning more quickly, which is potentially what then drives this very positive “more work than talk” mentality in the city.

(smow)blog: Briefly to end, as already stated one of aed Stuttgart’s first projects was the neuland Young Designer Competition. That ran for three years and then stopped. This year it is back. Why the pause?

Silvia Olp: The simple reason is that after 2007 not only did we have no sponsor for the event, but we also simply lacked the time. The association is run on a voluntary basis, in our free-time, and we all simply had too much to do with our “real” jobs. And so we put the competition on ice. Then the Karl Schlecht Stiftung approached us, the time felt right and so we decided to re-activate neuland, but this time as a biannual event.

(smow)blog: The jury meeting has taken place, the winners identified, if not yet formally crowned. Are you satisfied with the re-launch?

Frank Heinlein: Very! We had over 200 entries, including some very high quality projects, and the jury reported that in one or the other category they could have selected more projects than the maximum five per category that was allowed. In October we will not only have the Awards Ceremony but will also open an exhibition of the nominated projects, initially here in Stuttgart but then touring throughout Germany, so that everyone can form their own impression of the quality.

Full details on the aed Stuttgart and their current programme can be found at http://aed-stuttgart.de/

And in the interests of transparency (smow) Stuttgart is a member of aed Stuttgart. One of over 350.