Canopy Private - Public

A residential building from the sixties, near to the train station, one you would never notice, becomes a „place“. The temporary installation of the noble red canopy provokes a modification of the whole urban situation. The exact simulation and reproduction of a luxurious canopy, similar to those ones you find around Central Park in New York, is now transferred to a simple building with no special, outstanding position. For Weimar, the hierarchical connotation of these construction, which divide public space from private or extend the private into the public, denotes questions that were inconceivable in former GDR-times. A society formed by socialist philosophy can hardly imagine the hierarchization of a public sidewalk. Now, after 14 years, things have changed. The privatization of Weimar has been concluded, money from the west has restored the town and set new balances of power. During GDR times, no one had to be either private or public, walk either „straight through“ or „from the side“. New York in Weimar. The canopy establishes a new quality of space, a space full of questions. In the meantime, the inconspicuous house becomes a place of attention. Transit through this passage of the „private“ raises the visitor to another level. The lonesome inhabitant coming home late feels privacy, meanwhile the flaneur going down the street crosses the public sphere. At this moment, a process of reflection about one’s own position/role in the public context may start. One’s own life as a citizen / citoyen and as a private person becomes the subject of discussion, and the transformation of a non-place into a place has started. by Katharina Hohmann