Manifesta 16 Ruhr: This is not a church

For more than three decades, Manifesta has traveled across Europe as a nomadic biennial. Each edition temporarily settles in a different city or region, responding to the social, cultural, and spatial issues that define the location. When the Ruhr Area invited Manifesta to develop its sixteenth edition, the focus was not on an exhibition theme, but rather on a societal transformation quietly unfolding across Germany and much of Europe: the gradual disappearance of churches as central institutions in neighborhood life. In collaboration with architect and urbanist Josep Bohigas and a network of researchers, institutions, and community leaders, Manifesta began an extensive pre-biennial research project to examine the relationship between churches and their surrounding neighborhoods. Hundreds of sites were visited and mapped. Citizen consultations and expectation workshops invited residents to reflect on the kinds of shared spaces they and their communities need today. This publication presents the Urban Vision that emerged from this research. Rather than offering a fixed architectural blueprint, the 'vision' proposes a framework for rethinking churches as neighborhood infrastructures for the twenty-first century. It explores how these buildings might once again become spaces for encounter, dialogue, and care while acknowledging their complex histories and sensitivities.