Marie Enders
Third Place Trinkhalle. RWTH Aachen (Germany)
As a place to shop but also as a social centre, the Trinkhalle is a reliable cornershop and a nightwatchman at the same time. This typology can be found in places where the diversity of people is considerable: on almost every street corner, around the clock, unspectacular for friends, authentic for strangers. - Hardly any other place describes its region in its social structure as well as the Trinkhalle does the Ruhrgebiet.
The Trinkhalle has long been woven into the cityscape, but doesn’t seem to have found its role in the present age: Due to the economic pressure caused by long opening-hours of supermarkets, it is not easy for them to survive. That‘s why this work wants to stand up for the venue Trinkhalle, where the mentality of the Ruhrgebiet takes place. Based on literature about the origin of the kiosk, this project aims to provide an analytical description of the Trinkhallenculture from a historical, an architectural-sociological and a building-typological perspective. The background for the interpretation is provided by the works of sociologists and ethnologists, above all, the theory of the “third place“ and its eight charcteristics by Ray Oldenburg. Text-research, image-analysis, participant-observation and interviews were the main methods. Through cooperation with the photographer Reinaldo Coddou H. it was possible to make an up -to-date-inventory. Graphic-analysis helped to develop scientific theories regarding the resilience of the Trinkhalle. It enables comparisons with other cultural heritages and offers to rethink the sole consideration of material cultural heritage
The research finally results in a three-part-project:
ThirdPlace Trinkhalle – an application form to include the culture of Trinkhallen in the Ruhrgebiet in the list of the intangible cultural heritage of North-Rhine-Westphalia, a publication with explanatory illustrations and footnotes, and an exhibition inside an authentic Trinkhalle.
On 17th April 2020 the “Trinkhallen-Kultur im Ruhrgebiet“ has been included in the list of intangible cultural her-itage in North-Rhine-Westphalia. The exhibition was afterwards shown in the Zeche Hannover, Bochum and can be visited in the Baukunstarchiv North-Rhine-Westphalia in 2021.
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