Hamburg’s HafenCity University is breaking new ground with us. We are providing the first lecturer for entrepreneurship in architecture education in Germany , perhaps ever.
Sometimes miracles do still seem to happen. The topic is actually about 20 years old. Back then, I registered my intention to write a dissertation entitled “Entrepreneurship and Architects” at the Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin) and hardly anyone understood what I was up to. The term “entrepreneurship” was still an exotic concept in Germany and the architect:innen seemed to have nothing at all to do with entrepreneurial thinking and action at the time.
My endeavours to raise interest within the profession, at the university and elsewhere to awaken interest in a new way of thinking (you could also call it a paradigm ), went completely wrong at the time. It just wouldn ‘t and didn ‘t work. The time didn ‘t seem right yet.
This should change and the reasons for this are manifold, because the situation is obviously different today. This time I didn’t even try to convince myself . There was already a ripple effect. HafenCity University (HCU ) in Hamburg is obviously innovative and thinking about the future. More than at other universities where young people can train to become architects?
My dear friend and fellow architect Stefan Scholz, who also works at the HCU, was already one of the few who was fascinated by the topic of entrepreneurship. He was one of the few to proceed systematically and strategically, to succeed as an architect. He was the one who suggested me to the Dean of Studies at HCU, Bernd Dahlgrün, as a teacher in December 2023 in order to break new ground. He obviously recognised the opportunity opportunity that lies in combining entrepreneurship and architecture and immediately agreed.
From then on, things started to take off. The summer semester with almost 30 students was a complete success. Requests for further semesters followed shortly before the end of the event. It will be continued in the next summer semester 2025 with a new topic. A semester publication is currently being prepared. My next blog article in about 4 weeks will continue. Stay tuned. (Carsten Hokema, coach and consultant at Andersberater:innen).
