Art can be an important tool for successful urban development — both to elevate thinking about what an area can become, as an instrument in implementation, and as a means to generate new attractiveness and industry.

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“I did it so that this city — and I myself — would not go under,” the German architect Arnold Bode is said to have remarked. The occasion was the launch of the art exhibition Documenta in the city of Kassel. In 1955, not only the city, but the entire country needed to reinvent itself.

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In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, it was necessary to attempt an exchange with the outside world — one centred on values other than those most commonly associated with Germany at the time. The exhibition gathered contemporary art from a number of different countries and proved to be a great success, with over 100,000 visitors. It was decided that it would recur every five years, and it eventually grew to become the world’s largest art exhibition, drawing nearly one million attendees.

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