Rural Vision: Building Dialogues Through Architecture

The first book on rural architecture firm Christoph Hesse Architects.

Christoph Hesse Architects is based in Berlin and Korbach, a small town in the northwestern part of the German federal state of Hesse. This rural area in the green heart of Germany is the location of most of the projects the firm has realized since its establishment in 2010, though occasionally, they do plant their rural concepts into an urban context. Christoph Hesse Architects and their friends see their designs as open places of culture. On the one hand, they are catalysts for change in thought, intended to change people’s perspectives and stimulate self-efficacy in society. On the other hand, they are actual interventions in globally prevailing structures that can be disrupted and changed locally. Thus, the firm distinguishes between projects acting as perspective changes and as system changers.

Rural Vision is the first monograph on Christoph Hesse Architects. It also constitutes a manifesto that illustrates how collaborative projects create social, ecological, and economic points of contact and dialogue. Moreover, they promote sustainable change that not only improves lives in rural areas but also redefines change as a source of innovation and social progress. The book offers alternative strategies based on selected projects through photos, visualizations, drawings, and plans, as well as essays and conversations.

Kristin Feireiss is an architecture curator, author, and editor based in Berlin. She is the cofounder of Berlin’s Aedes Architecture Forum and its affiliate ANCB, The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory in Berlin, an interdisciplinary discourse platform.