Ruhr International Spring Academy
As a local equivalent to the "International Summer Academy Venice", which has been taking place for over 30 years, apl. Prof. Olaf Schmidt and apl. Prof. Michael Schwarz launched the first "International Spring Academy" in 2013 and organized it with the Dipartimento di Architettura of the Politecnico di Torino. The theme of the first academy was "Una Strada Orribile" - the B1 in Dortmund's city center. Due to the success of the inaugural event, the TU Eindhoven, the FH Potsdam and the Universitá degli Studi di Napoli Federico II were won over. In the following years, further Dortmund topics such as "Der Wall" (2014), "Der Hellweg" (2015), "Stadtplätze" (2016), "Nordstadt-Modelle" (2017), "Stadt-Brachen" (2018), "Nachverdichtung" (2019), "Konversion" (2020), "Großsiedlungen" (2021) and "Stadteingänge" (2022) were examined.
The academy promotes collaboration between international architecture students and lecturers. This offers young academics the opportunity to acquire extensive knowledge of urban development, urban planning, architecture and architectural history of this special European region during the workshop and to explore and analyze both the Ruhr area as a whole and the city of Dortmund under certain urban planning and architectural aspects in a professionally trained and guided manner. The workshop is organized jointly by all participating universities. The students will be supervised in international teams by lecturers from the participating universities. For both the students and the teachers, the joint work and the exchange of content with the students and colleagues from the other European universities is an extraordinary learning and teaching experience. An essential part of the program is a symposium with a series of lectures and panel discussions. Numerous speakers from the fields of science, politics, culture, architecture and urban planning are invited. An excursion confronts the students with the built environment and provides input for their academic work.
The International Spring Academy is held annually in March with a preparatory seminar in the winter semester by apl. Prof. Olaf Schmidt and apl. Prof. Michael Schwarz.