Wiener Hitze

320 pages, Text English and German

For centuries, dealing with cold has been the dominant climatic factor for architectural design in Central Europe. The climate change apparent now assigns this role to heat. Architecture and urban design strive for efficient, resource-saving technical solutions to meet the changing climatic conditions and the energy standards they demand without really questioning customary notions of comfort, forms of living, and urban coexistence. Yet architects must increasingly search for experimental approaches and new ways in which we can live together well in a rapidly warming climate, in particular in cities and metropolitan regions.

Despite a supposed powerlessness in the face of the impending climate catastrophe, the contributions collected in this volume offer a diverse range of narratives that tell of experiences, observations, and the needs of people that inhabit hotter worlds, both real and imagined. What role as climate producers can architecture and the city play in shaping our habitat if these important issues are understood not only in purely technological but also in cultural and social terms?