With the focus in this issue on individual housing, urban development and essential infrastructure facilities we discuss classic everyday themes of the building business. They affect the entire population and therefore illustrate in a special way that building is also always political. In this context it is precisely the most private and supposedly "apolitical" building theme -the single-family house - which, on account of the high costs involved for the community, is politically the most explosive. We show how this theme can be handled in a responsible way. In contrast the political character of the theme of urban development, is obvious to all. Generally, democracies determine through a general social consensus how a new urban district should look, which services it should offer the community and what should best be avoided. In Vienna's best-known urban development area innovative paths are being taken in this regard; in our critical competition report in the middle of the issue Franziska Leeb analyses ideas for an urban development model and a design handbook for the Seeterras-sen quarter there. The explicitly political work of the Belgian architects collective Rotor has been granted the prestigious German Schelling Award, as Isabella Marboe reports in our journal. For these committed planners pragmatically making something possible rather than traditional definition through architecture is the central issue. The two infrastructure buildings that we describe in our reports on recent projects also fit with the theme of social "empowerment": a library for a small town in South Tyrol and a drinking water pumping station for a r.ural community in Vorarlberg ensure that primary intellectual and bodily needs of the population are met, while at the same time delivering remarkable architecture statements: building is, quite simply, political.
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