Center for Spatial Cosmology at HafenCity Universität Hamburg

The Center for Spatial Cosmology (CSC) at HCU is a transdisciplinary platform spanning art, architecture, and anthropology. It examines the relationship between spaces (buildings, places, landscapes, and environments) and the cosmologies (worldviews, belief systems, myths, and ideologies) that shape them and are constructed through them.

The spaces we create and inhabit are more than mere backdrops. They are physical and tangible manifestations of cultural and social values, shaping our identities, our beliefs, and our understanding of our surroundings. In other words, they reflect how we conceptualize the world, and they influence how we perceive, imagine, and transform it.

In this endeavor, we are committed to:

·        TRANSDISCIPLINARY CREATION: Merging art, architecture, and anthropology (AAA) to attend to the cultural, political, and affective dimensions of spatial constructions and built environments.

·        CONCRETE, GROUNDED PRACTICE: Engaging with the messy realities of spaces, where material and immaterial forces intertwine, through a hands-on approach and a broad spectrum of experimental media.

·        COSMOLOGICAL INQUIRY: Working with traditional and contemporary spatial cosmologies and elucidating the complex, dynamic, and speculative dimensions of space-making—following the question: What world emerges from the spaces we make?

Combining critical analysis and speculative transformations through artworks and experimental architectural designs, the CSC seeks to expand conventional understandings and practices of art and architecture and contribute to rethinking space- and worldmaking at a critical time.

HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) is a university of the built environment, bringing together architecture, urban planning, engineering, and cultural studies under one roof. Within this setting, the Architecture Department combines design practice with critical, research-based approaches to contemporary spatial questions, from planetary urbanization to environmental transformation.