Detailansicht
Cities as Multiple Landscapes
Investigating the Sister Cities Innsbruck and New Orleans, Interdisziplinäre Stadtforschung 21
ISBN/EAN: 9783593506470
Umbreit-Nr.: 9413676
Sprache:
Englisch
Umfang: 529 S.
Format in cm: 3 x 21.2 x 14
Einband:
Paperback
Erschienen am 13.10.2016
Auflage: 1/2016
- Kurztext
- Im Zentrum dieses Buches stehen Geschichte, Materialität, Mikrolandschaften und Atmosphären der Partnerstädte Innsbruck und New Orleans. Dabei stützen sich die Autorinnen und Autoren auf das Konzept der "multiplen Landschaften".
- Autorenportrait
- Christina Antenhofer ist assoziierte Professorin für Geschichte des Mittelalters an der Universität Innsbruck. Günter Bischof ist Marshall-Plan-Professor für Geschichte an der University of New Orleans. Robert L. Dupont, assoziierter Professor, leitet dort das Department of History. Ulrich Leitner, Dr. phil., ist Universitätsassistent am Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
- Leseprobe
- Cities and Landscapes: Comparing Innsbruck and New Orleans Christina Antenhofer, Robert L. Dupont How should it be possible to compare two such different cities as Innsbruck and New Orleans? And why should one even want to compare these cities which at first glance do not have much in common? New Orleans, the Big Easy, the Crescent City, famous for its jazz, home to 389,617 people, surrounded by spectacular wetlands, is characterized by a tropical climate and its struggle against hurricanes. The city is strongly marked by its river, the Mississippi, and its historical neighborhoods such as the Vieux Carré and the Garden District, which make it a favored site for shooting movies and experiencing historic architectural sites of the 18th and 19th centuries. Most tourists, however, enjoy the city because of its many festivals and bars, which make it a unique place to party and enjoy live music. Innsbruck, on the other hand, is a lot smaller with 132,048 inhabitants. Situated in the center of the Alps, it is famous for having hosted the Olympic Games twice and appreciated for its historical atmosphere where its short period as an imperial city under Emperor Maximilian I left its traces in the Old Town and its surroundings, thus making Innsbruck one of the most interesting places to study the German Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Yet most tourists now know Innsbruck as place for winter sports and its Christmas market, reflected by the Swarovski crystals which are certainly its most cherished souvenir. To this fairly associative list, one could add other aspects of these cities such as the fantastic cuisines which both New Orleans and Innsbruck are famous for. Both cities have strong local and regional identities. Both have long histories of being centers of multicultural exchange. Both cities profit from their spectacular landscapes and geographical situations. In particular, their geographical locations situate them within environmental and technological as well as security challenges that need to be combined with aesthetical (cultural heritage) and ecological debates. However, the main justification for focusing on these two cities as case studies and dedicating this volume to them is that this comparison is based not only on first impressions but also on longer lived experiences. For more than 40 years now the stories of the two cities have become intensely intertwined because of the International Summer School the University of New Orleans first started to organize in Innsbruck in 1976. Altogether, almost 10,000 students, 454 professors and 62 staff have spent six summer weeks in Innsbruck over the years. Every summer 250 to 300 students from various universities in the American South have been hosted in Innsbruck and attended classes at the University of Innsbruck. Every year, when regular Innsbruck students leave their university and most often also the city for their summer holidays, they are replaced by crowds of young Americans who change the entire atmosphere in the city. In reference to this volume's title, one might say these American visitors create new landscapes of their own. They alter the image of the city, visibly bringing their own dressing styles to Innsbruck, an experience most intensely felt in the 1990s and 2000s when most young Europeans still preferred jeans to the visiting Southern girls wearing their light summer dresses and high heels, rarely seen before in the otherwise sporty Alpine city. Hearing American English all over the streets of Innsbruck adds to a new linguistic landscape. What began as individual experience grew into a collective one with students recommending their Innsbruck paths and even writing special travel guides for students spending their summer in the Alpine town. To reference Susanne Rau, thus real topographies came into being, written parcours on how to walk around the city and which places to visit. The places they frequent are not necessarily the ones tourists or locals would choose. The Gasthof Mohren, for example, situated conveniently halfway between the Old Town and the dormitories of the students, successfully survived for many years thanks to the New Orleanean students who would gather there every day after school, whereas the rest of the year it was a rather deserted place. By now students whose parents had already been to Innsbruck for the Summer School participate in the program, and their written or narrated Innsbruck topographies have been passed down via generations of students. As well as the more or less fleeting images presented in the first paragraphs of this essay, real narratives on Innsbruck were created. They are made visible in the Memories & Stories that were collected via interviews for the 40th anniversary of the Summer School and presented in a brochure. Students and faculty staff of all the years were asked to write about their memories and their favorite places in the town of Innsbruck. The short portraits they give sketch the panorama of a New Orleanean topography of Innsbruck, one remarkably shaped by the river Inn. While Innsbruck locals do not pay their river much attention, it plays a special part in the New Orleanean encounter with Innsbruck, an impression which may have to do with the importance the Mississippi plays for New Orleans. "My best memories: I like to walk beside the river, then sit on one of the benches and pretend I'm local []". "My favorite place in Innsbruck is where the gray-green Inn River flows past the medieval Old Town and under the bridge for which the city was named." "However, Lynn and I recall with everlasting fondness, our daily walks along the Inn River at sunset []." "My favorite spot in Innsbruck is the path along the Inn River, where I would take a daily walk." "Our favorite spot in Innsbruck is the walk along the Inn River []" "My favorite place is to walk along the Inn river." "Aside from the 'tourist' spots, I'd have to say something very simple, the benches near the Inn River, near the Studentenhaus. You could sit still as the Inn rushed by, and all around, everywhere you looked, was beauty." "My favorite site?/?spot in Innsbruck is anywhere along the river, but especially near the old town []". Next to the river it is the Old Town that ranks among the most important spots, particularly the Golden Roof, Innsbruck's landmark. "It's hard to choose a favorite site from that summer, as the family traveled to Venice, Salzburg, Vienna, hiked a glacier, rafted the Inn, and stood in awe of the Goldenes Dachl." "My favorite spot in Innsbruck is sitting in an outdoor café in the Old Town in front of the Goldenes Dachl, because of the beauty, history, and ambience of the place." "My favorite place in Innsbruck is the Old City because of its beauty and the history it represents." "My favorite place was the square by the Golden Roof and the Tower because of all the restaurants." But obviously the strongest impression is left by the steep mountains surrounding Innsbruck, something "unlike anything you've seen" for any Louisiana native: "Before you know it, there are these massive mountains that you're surrounded by, and for a Louisiana native, it's unlike anything you've seen. In 2012, the sight of such natural beauty and the bus ride into the city made me lose my breath and bring tears to my eyes. I wish I could have bottled the feeling. Since then, I've made a point to sit with a student on the shuttle ride into Innsbruck every year-just to see their face upon arrival. Every time, no matter what year, the look is always the same-wide-eyed, mouth opened, and full of awe." While the New Orleans-Innsbruck relationship has thus generated its own narratives and lived topographies in and about Innsbruck, hundreds Innsbruck students and faculty have also been studying and teaching in New Orleans. With up to 80 students leaving Innsbruck for an exchange term or two every year, the partnership between the two univer...