Making Heimat

The current refugee situation is the starting point for the exhibition in the German Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2016. The theme of the pavilion is not only the status quo of overcrowded reception centers for refugees or the necessary ad hoc plans for new housing. What happens afterwards, so that the new arrivals remain in Germany legally, achieve immigrant status, and are integrated into German society? The book Arrival City by the Canadian journalist Doug Saunders has several surprising answers to this question at hand, with the result that he was taken on as a consultant for the German Pavilion. His demands, which he developed based on research conducted in more than twenty cities on five continents, can also be applied to the situation in the German cities of arrival. While some of Saunders’s theories draw a consensus, others are provocative.