"The region would burst with creativity" - interview with Prof. Dr. Volker Eichener, Pt. I

Prof. Dr. Volker Eichener, headmaster of EBZ Business School, is a metropolis connaisseur. Originally a social and political scientist, he now manages an academy, consults politicians and initiatives and offers various courses. Under the roof of the term “urban research”, he deals with topics such as real estate market development, demographic change, target group development, marketing, urban and regional development, and international markets. We had a conversation with the enterprising and agile scientist – the main issue being the development of the Ruhr region.

Seen from your point of view as an urban research specialist – what does the Ruhr need now?


Prof. Dr. Eichener: Instead of buying culture which has grown elsewhere we need to develop our own potentials in the field of avant-garde culture and not high culture. Urbanatix goes into that direction – I liked that very much. Interestingly, such things often happen on their own, without external incentives. In Herne, there was the „Initiative Musik“ which started 20 years ago already, and never has received any cultural subsidies for a long time – and which never got the permission to perform in any of the city’s official cultural locations such as the Saalbau, for example. The Metal scene in the Ruhr area is also very active, with a lot of interesting –and now well-known- bands which also never got just one cent of public mooney. And now imagine just 5 per cent of the budget for opera, theatre, and classical music would be spent on the support of avant-garde culture – this region would burst with creativity.

From the avant-garde scene, you always hear the same complaints: initiatives are met by lack of understanding, scepticism, and rejection coming from the (local) deciders. Maybe there are some ideological barriers to overcome?

Of course. I just supported this impression from my point of view, and I am not directly involved. I myself am no creative artist, but from the point of view of an urban researcher, it looks like this: cities like New York, San Francisco, London, Istanbul, or Lisbon thrive because such initiatives come up in the not so sophisticated areas, they start in some cellar pubs or in a backyard, and get popular or better-known later.

Why does this lack of understanding and acceptance for these important initiatives still prevail in the Ruhr area?

I think the reason for this is the inferiority complex of the region. The Ruhr has a history as a working-class region which has been deliberately denied any social acknowledgement. The “office desk of the Ruhr” has been in Düsseldorf for 10 years, the head office of Thyssen was there and has just recently returned to Essen. For decades, the politicians of this region have felt inferior to their colleagues from Düsseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, or Münster. The image of the Ruhr was: there’s not much more there than coaldust. In the 70s, there was some atmosphere of departure in the air, resulting in the start of the Initiativkreis und Pro Ruhrgebiet. At that time, people thought that -what with the Ruhr being in the middle of a structural change- the region had to catch up with others concerning „soft“ location factors (mostly high culture). Nobel Prize winners were invited, piano concerts with world-famous pianists were organised, and existing cultural locations were upgraded, embellished, and polished. That was certainly important and the right thing to do, but in the meantime, we have reached a point where it is ridiculous to match the Ruhr with Stuttgart or Hannover. Those are not the benchmark cities for a region with a population of 5,5 million people. Our benchmarks are New York, San Francisco, and London.


The free avant-garde scene, the „underground“, still doesn’t feel much appreciated, though…

Interestingly enough, this question wouldn’t even been asked in, say, New York. People there simply rely on their own capability and on the market, meaning: you offer good actions, projects, and objects, and if you manage to get the attention of others, you get paid, and as a consequence, you can afford a better studio. That is the attitude in New York – and as long you’re not that successful, you simply work in the cheap factory lofts. People are not that demanding there. In Germany, there are much more regulations - and subsidies: you see (and rightly so) how many subsidies a symphony orchestra gets – and you get nothing.