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In what kind of city we want to live is a question that has already
been asked before. Cities are developing over time. They underlie
permanent transformation and adapt to new situations. Technical
innovations, new procedures, and social concerns are part of urban
dynamics that manifest themselves in the city’s basic foundations,
its architectural appearance and in its inhabitants’ modes of
behavior. Since built structures as well as the generational
self-conception exhibit high stability, evolution does not necessarily
take place in short cycles. It is part of the city’s character
that change always affects many people, which is why the diverse
interests need to be subjected to extensive processes of negotiation.
The issue of mobility, how people and goods get from A to B within the city, is always a central one. After the destructions of the Second World War the city of Hanover was confronted with the unparalleled situation of being able to set the course for changes in this area that would coin the city’s image over decades. The car-centered city was the imperative of the time. This idea came along with the strict separation of the city’s operational areas. Living, working, shopping, and leisure were supposed to take place in specifically defined and generously separated locations. Subsequently mobility increased and was put in effect by the use of the car as well as the – eventually implemented – vision of an “Unterpflasterbahn” (underpavement tramway – Rudolf Hillebrecht). However, this newly developed type of urbanity proved not to be ideal. What kind of city do we want to live in? Facing knowledge of the finite nature of resources and man-made climate change, of anonymity within cities as well as digital developments, a dynamic has evolved that generates new ideas and possibilities concerning urban life. It is hardly possible to harmonize these visions with the current structural situation of our cities. In her work Kurven Kreisel Tangenten Bettina Lockemann picks out Hanover’s urban spaces of mobility as the central theme. She observes the movement of people and goods through the city and the way in which this mobility coins and visually defines the urban space – pointing beyond the car-centered city. This project was developed within the context of the Hannover Shots 2019 grant, sponsored by the HannoverStiftung. 
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