During 2016 a new chapter for Stiftung Baukultur Thüringen started, the first and oldest foundation of its kind in the world. The title of the opening event: ‘Testing the Future / Erprobung der Zukunft’ was nothing less than the programme for what was to follow. The team of the foundation successfully started during the next couple of years, thanks to a series of collaborations with different actors, projects such as ‘XS Ferienhäuser / Architektourismus’ or ‘Das100’. These projects were the opportunity to discuss, communicate as well as implement innovative concepts and model projects in the state of Thuringia.

‘XS Ferienhäuser’, for example, exemplified the circumstance that architecture is not a question of size, a point that was put to the test inside an international architecture competition as well as a correlated research project organized and carried out by the team of the foundation. The task of reflecting about the architecture of small touristic temporary housing structures inside Thuringia’s breathtaking landscape were an occasion for putting to the test architecture’s all to well-hidden secret of being able to activate concealed potentials and to initiate productive processes of various kind. In this case put to the extreme: through the implementation of very small interventions — in size extra small as the title suggests. The second big project of this phase: ‘Das100’, was not less programmatic. Its title expressed the desire of the Studierendenwerk Thüringen, the initiating partner for this project, and the foundation to implement a model project of innovative student housing, which should be 100% digital, 100% ecological and 100% social. With other words, a project where newest developments in digital design and manufacturing, sustainable construction processes as well as new forms of living could be experimentally verified in a build object.

‘Testing the future’ was not only the motto on which the projects of the foundation where based, but it was also the maxim, which guided the development of the foundation itself. The question was: How can a nonprofit organization such as the foundation effectively contribute to a positive future for all? How does knowledge travel? How can innovation and good practice be fostered? How should such an institution be composed? How can it operate in an effective manner? How can the world mirror inside Thuringia and how can Thuringia mirror inside the world?

The final question was to envision a future for Stiftung Baukultur. How could an institution like the foundation, where to discuss, learn, share and test ideas, be structured, work and operate? With McLuhan we could say the medium is the message or in case of the foundation projects are the answer. A material practice, an inventive practice cannot be grasped in the abstraction of theoretical discourse alone, it cannot remain passive, be abandoned to the cataclysmic effects of mere administration or in absence of a programme or idea to the mere repetition of common places. Instead, such a place has to operate through content, has to generate meaningful content, has to engage what or who is around it and try to put things in relation. This is quite simple, just like with architecture itself, it is not a question of money or power, but a question of ideas, confidence and audacity.

There are already enough places where to consume always the same, but too few, where critical thought can be put to the test. Where people and institutions can meet. The new groundbreaking project ‘Visionaries of building culture / Visionäre der Baukultur’, a series of thematic projects such as ‘Platform Debate on Housing / Plattform Wohndebatte’, ‘Woodland’ and the conception of the ‘New Thuringia State Prize for Building Culture / Neuer Thüringer Staatspreis für Baukultur’ together with the invention and implementation of a series of new digital media infrastructures for the foundation, were an attempt to envision such a future, to render the image of it through the matter it is made of.

The team cast a seed, with time there might be a tree.