42nd Newsletter of the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies (Berlin)

Young Urban researchers at the Humboldt-University: Lossau und Lange: Julia Lossau has been an assistant professor of Cultural Geography at the Geographical Institute of the Humboldt-University since January 2006 (http://www.geographie.hu-berlin.de/Members/lossau_julia). One of her specialist areas is in the field of theoretical cultural studies of the cities, which concerns itself with relationships between society, power and (urban) spatial aspects. Based on the premise that urban space and location is not just simply “there”, but rather created through ongoing social processes of assigning meaning (German: Bedeutungszuweisung), she concerns herself with the question of how cities and urban areas are, in different contexts, produced and reproduced by powerful protagonists. In her work she plays particular attention to the views of those concerned with urban governance and planning (e.g. city and regional planners, state funding, marketing departments, local inhabitants and visiting groups).
Bastian Lange (www.bastianlange.de, www.multiplicities.de) has been in charge of the GSZ network project “Governance of Creative Industries” since 2004 and will be representing Frau Lossau in the coming winter semester. Lange worked from 2006-2010 for the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig (EU-Project “Accommodating Creative Knowledge”) and was project leader for the creation and compilation of the first “cultural economy report” (Kulturwirtschaftsbericht) for the Federal State of Saxony. During his research his main focus has been on so called culturepreneurs. Culturepreneurs are creative entrepreneurs, who found and run clubs, music and fashion and various other shops playing an important role in the media and design sectors. Therefore, culturepreneurs play a central role in the conveyance and transmission of new knowledge, style and information in the creative scene. As entrepreneurs they create new markets – also in Berlin.
Literature: Lossau & Winter (2011): The social construction of city nature. In: W. Endlicher (Ed.): Perspectives in Urban Ecology. Berlin: Springer. Lossau (2008): ‘New urbanity’ and contemporary forms of public art. In: Erdkunde 62, 4, 329-337. Lange (2011): Accessing Markets in Creative Industries – Professionalisation and social-spatial strategies of Culturepreneurs in Berlin. Entrepreneurship and regional development 23(3), pp. 259-279. Lange/Büttner (2010): Spatialisation patterns of translocal knowledge networks. European Planning Studies 18(6), pp. 989-1018.