Flâneur Festival — Fountains, Stair Lounges, and City Islands

This summer, the urban-space festival called “Flâneur” wants to meet the contemporary needs of society and permanently shape the future-oriented image of Basel as a creative, sustainable, and diverse city. They want to incite change and attract a new, young, and urban audience by offering special city experiences in the city center of Basel, with attractive urban space objects. The festival will culminate at the beginning of September with a 3-day special event on Elisabethenstrasse. But even before then, they are providing new opportunities to enjoy the summer in town! Two of these initiatives that have already been implemented for the past few weeks include the Thursday-morning sunrise ferry rides on the “Wilde Maa” ferry at St. Alban, as well as the kaleidoscopes set up in different places in town. Now they have added several additional initiatives to make summer in Basel more fun and attractive.

Fontaine (Fountain)

To beat the heat of the summer, spray misters set up at various sites in town to provide a refreshing cool-down, making your stay in the city more pleasant. At the push of a button, a fine cooling mist comes out of the column via small atomizer nozzles for around 30 seconds. The water for this is drawn from a connected hydrant, but the overall water consumption is low. In this way, Flâneur makes a small contribution to local refreshment at times when it is actually too hot to stroll around. The Flâneur “Fontaine” spray misters can be found at Rümelinsplatz, Klosterberg, Münsterplatz, Fasnachtsgasse, the University Library, Messeplatz, and Theodorsgraben-Anlage.

Stääge Lounges (Stair Lounges)

A second initiative that has been implemented in recent days are the Flâneur Stääge Lounges (staircase lounges) that invite you to rest, relax, and observe the urban space and its people in a new way. Instead of just climbing up and down the stairs as usual, they lounger offer an opportunity to pause and linger directly on the stairs. The Stääge Lounges can be found at Theaterplatz (in front of the Kult Kino on Theaterstrasse) and at Pyramidenplatz (next to the Elisabethenkirche).

Stadt Insel (City Island)

A third project is the creation of “city islands.” With the staging of Flâneur city furniture, city users are invited to think about the public space of the future and to enjoy the pleasant surprise: the city as the living room of the future—one of the core themes of the Flâneur Festival. In the form of 1:1 prototypes of city furniture, the created city islands evaluate measures that aim to contribute significantly to the quality of staying in town. Mobile dwelling units are created along the focal points of shade providers, solar energy, public power banks, and greening. Starting in mid-July, you will be able to find the Flâneur “Stadt Inseln” on Freie Strasse, at the Kunstmuseum on Dufourstrasse, and at Messeplatz.

https://www.flaneurbasel.ch/

Advertisement