2014, Judenburg

Paradise Enterprise

Paradise Enterprise, Judenburg, 2012-2014
a sample project for direct urbanism

in cooperation with the City of Judenburg
funded by departure_Vienna Business Agency
and Public Art Styria

Direct Urbanism
Planning the City/ Region
Participation

Paradise Enterprise reactivated the long-vanished paradise garden of the former convent in Judenburg, from 2012 to 2104, as a new public urban space between the historical city center and the industrial area on the other side of the River Mur. In this exemplary project for direct urbanism transparadiso employed artistic tools and strategies to develop long-term perspectives for the City of Judenburg. For reactivating the paradise garden of the former convent as new urban public space, Paradise Enterprise realized artistic urban interventions along the river Mur and at the former paradise garden that has rather fallen by the wayside.

The interventions were coordinated with the Urban Planning Dept. of Judenburg. In order to develop future perspectives above all for young people, transparadiso formulated a two-stage concept whose first step was to get young people actively involved in the urban interventions.

In order to open up new perspectives for Judenburg in the required complexity, transparadiso prepared the context for art projects in public space (in cooperation with Public Art Styria). The municipality provided artist-in-residencies and Stefan Demming, Folke Köbberling and Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler realized projects in the Paradiesgarten. In parallel, students of the Vienna University of Technology initiated an urban knitting project, which was intensively taken up and realized by the municipality and only narrowly missed the World Guinness Record (after Hong Kong) as the "largest urban knitwork": The bridge pier was wrapped with a 142m2 knitted sculpture.

Accompanying the process, transparadiso conceived a longer-term urbanistic concept for the development of Judenburg, especially taking social issues into account: Activating the Paradise Garden via apartments for singles (which are lacking despite the shrinking of the city due to demographic changes); creating a direct access to the River Mur; expanding the landscape space newly installed by the urban interventions as an urban center for the entire city.

Projects/ urban interventions
Stefan Demming "The Smallest Show on Earth 2"
Folke Köbberling "Girls Club"
Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler "...we want BMX and pumptrack..."


Previous project:
Girls Club