Zwischenstadt. Estudo conceptual para a compreensão da realidade urbana na Alemanha

Abstract

This paper focuses on a critical reading of the concept Zwischenstadt, developed by Thomas Sieverts in the 1990s, to describe the development of suburban territory in Germany. The urban reality, as we perceive today, is a complex organism, a result of a combination of several factors, such as a liberal politic, the outsourcing of economic structure, the development of infrastructure networks and the development of society, since the second half of the XX century. Zwischenstadt describes an urban typology that adopted a physical form, that is fragmented, heterogeneous, with undefined limits, highly complex and constantly changing, that can not be understand based on the classical terminology of urbanism. As the phenomena described by the concept Zwischenstadt are complex and diverse, this paper seeks to clarify the concept through an observation of the region Frankfurt Rhein-Main. The intention of this work is to understand the concept Zwischenstadt, elucidating the complexity of urban reality described and seek to understand the assumptions described by the author for a future procedure with Zwischenstadt.