Mannheim together

Mannheim is not only known for its square city layout and Baroque palace, but also for its diverse citizenry.

Mann­heim, a medium-sized city in southwes­tern Germany, is known for its grid-plan city layout, its baroque palace and its bruta­list buil­dings – but also, and above all, for its ethni­cally and cultu­rally diverse popu­la­tion. This diverse and colourful mix of people can be expe­ri­enced, among other places, in Neckar­stadt East and Neckar­stadt West, two districts northwest of the city centre.

The cultural link between the two neigh­bour­hoods is ALTER, a public space situated next to the Alter Mess­platz, which, with its free sports and cultural acti­vi­ties, is a place to meet, pass time and get toge­ther.

A graphic has been installed on a sports pitch at ALTER that tries to express all the posi­tive quali­ties of this commu­nity-crea­ting space: a ‘super­gra­phic’ that seeks to visually repre­sent and streng­then the exis­ting cohe­sion of the people and its atmo­sphere.

The project also aims to set a marker for the preser­va­tion of public cultural spaces, both within the city and beyond.

The aspect of active togetherness already came into play during the realisation, because several interested people spontaneously followed the public call for help every day.

“Common Monnem – toge­ther Mann­heim”: The title of the project is composed of the words “Common” and “Monnem”.

The 38-metre-long and 16-metre-wide super­gra­phic with a total area of over 560 square metres follows a typo­gra­phic approach. This draws refe­rence from the basic geome­tric motifs in the poster for 1975 State Garden Show in Mann­heim. The iconic skyscra­pers over­loo­king ALTER were also cons­tructed around this time. The over­sized lette­ring “Common” forms the focal point of the graphic. The letters are oriented towards the centre of the pitch – analogous to players who gather toge­ther in a circle before a game begins: they hook into each other in a circle and thus form a unit.

The graphic’s connec­tion to its loca­tion is also rein­forced by the choice of colours. The pink, for example, picks up on the colour of ALTER’s facade, while the green estab­lishes a rela­ti­onship with the adja­cent green space on the banks of the Neckar river. The red, blue and yellow are taken from Mannheim’s city coat of arms.