1:1 urban research
superimposition
social plastic
border urbansim

Gorizia / Nova Gorica (Italy/Slovenia)
Project orientated Research
Realization 1997
"Spremembazione" - Spremembazione I

Spremembazione, made by Margarethe Mueller / Paul Rajakovics, is the first in a series of urban interventions since 1997 in the divided city of Gorizia / Nova Gorica.

These interventions are set, with respect to architecture and urbanism, in the sphere of experimental research and attempt to expand the definition of "urban planning" by including the conflicting parallel existence of everyday life, i.e. the psychostructure of space and its inhabitants.

In 1997 the international workshop "Progettare il confine, Gorizia/Nova Gorica: nuovo spazi del dialogo" initiated by ACMA, adressed problems facing the devided city. How will the disappearence of the European Union external border - expected in the next 10 years - effect the political, economical, social and cultural space in the divided city? This question appeared crutial, not only with respect to the obvious differences in the physical cityspace. Its significance goes beyond economic and political factors: historic trauma, including the marginalization of a city straddling the iron curtain, as well as increased ethnic homogeneithy since the border between Italy and former Yugoslavia was redrawn in 1947 (currently separating Italy and Slovenia) appeared to produce distrust and distance.

The urban intervention "Spremembazione" respond to the city's current divided condition and attempted to bring together the two different political, historical and cultural parts.

Next to a "classic" structural urban concept, in direct cooperation with the residents on both sides of the EU external border, an expanded mapping of the city was elaborated and by means of direct psychogeographic interventions, a parallel-space, a new social construct was set up. The trauma of the divided city were reconfigured into a space of potentials.