The City Lab
Linz in Transition
Hannah Kordes, City Perspective Main Square Linz, 2022 
Gregor Graf/Clemens Bauder, Future without end (Nordico market stall at the Urfahran fair), 2017
Linz has already experienced a number of identities – provincial city, Führer city, steel city, culture capital and UNESCO city of media arts. The official slogans and campaigns are as diverse as its familiar ascriptions over the past decades: Danube city on the edge of the Alps; It all begins in Linz; In Linz, it stinks; Linz is changing; Linz is dying; Linz is dull; and last but not least: Linz is Linz.
But what does Linz represent today, and for whom? What is it that makes Linz really special, apart from the Danube, the gateau, Hitler, Vöest, the Leberkassemmerl (white roll filled with a slice of sausage meat), the grotto railway and the aftermath of being the European capital of culture? What is it like to live in the city? What form should Linz take in the future? And what can we do to achieve this?
In the City Lab we will go in search of traces of Linz’s recent past, focus on its structure, its inhabitants* and lay the tracks for the city of tomorrow.