Empty city lots and buildings are often used as starting points for cultural innovations. As a consequence of the transformation of the post-industrial city, the public space has become an exciting laboratory for interdisciplinary cooperation among artists, architects, urban planners, and landscape architects.

Featuring essays by acknowledged experts, Back to the City documents 28 site-specific installations and temporary interventions in Germany and Australia, which offer exemplary prospects for the revitalization of empty land and thus demonstrate the great potential of provisional usage of urban spaces. The projects date from 2002 to 2008 and were curated by architect and urban planner Steffen Lehmann, Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, UNESCO Professor for Sustainable Urban Development and the founding director of s_Lab Space Laboratory for Architectural Research and Design.

Edited by Steffen Lehmann,

texts by Stephen Garrett, Anne Graham, Steffen Lehmann, Michael J. Ostwald, Angela Philip, J. Meejin Yoon u.a.