The concierge of my hotel is not a fan. He thinks the idea of spending a whole day at Ebertplatz square is preposterous. Dealers and criminals all over the place and that’s just for starters! It’s a treacherous place, according to him. Admittedly, this square’s reputation really does leave a lot to be desired. A brutalist monstrosity, Ebertplatz lies, like a concrete souvenir of the 1960s, just a few minutes away from the cathedral. It’s a throwback to a time when urban planners still thought car-friendly cities were a good idea. It wasn’t really made for people at all – it was meant as a place where you can disappear underground – quite literally – as quickly as possible.
Ebertplatz in Cologne: transit and transition combined
Ebertplatz square is a transit hub – in two senses. Cologne’s most spectacular alternative culture scene has made its home here. Galleries, art spaces, experimental music projects and artistic interventions in public environments. International collectors congregate in the surrounding cafés and bars. But it’s not just the creative community that’s driving the change. Volunteers look after the green spaces and neighbourhood groups are involved too. All of them want to put an end to the square’s bad image. It’s a huge experiment that’s becoming increasingly visible and increasingly successful as each day passes. When I tell the concierge all this, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Oh well, have fun!”
The council are being really supportive. This sort of mutual regard doesn’t come automatically. We really appreciate it.
Ihsan Alisan, Kunstraum Mouches Volantes
In the morning: benches, skinny jeans and baseball bats
[ 7:11 ] It’s early. And it’s June. And it’s muggy. The previous evening was one of those balmy summer nights when everyone stays outside ’til late to eat an ice cream because they don’t want to go home. There were people sitting in front of the shipping container on the square, opposite the fountain, until 11pm. I was sitting on the other side of the street, at Il Cancello near the Eigelsteintor gate. The buskers kept stopping because there was constantly someone they knew passing by. Now, the square’s deserted. Like most squares at this time of day.
[ 8:20 ] The street cleaners are out doing their job. It takes them one and a half hours to do Ebertplatz. The few people who spent the night on the wooden benches beneath the trees are still asleep.
[ 8:40 ] Finally, some company! A man in his 50s, his skinny jeans slightly too loose, his Hawaiian shirt a bit too big, sits down on a concrete bench a few metres from me. “Not much going on here, is there?” I say. “Things gets more tense when it gets fuller,” he replies. “Why?” I ask. “You’ll find out, young man,” his answer. He doesn’t explain what he means. He gives me a not very friendly grin and leaves.
Shage Imas: “The dealers used to want to call me ‘Mum’. I told them, ‘If I was your mother, you wouldn’t be hanging around here.’” 
Helle Habenicht: “The council and the cultural community are working hand in hand here. The direct communication between both sides works because we go that extra mile.” 
Pascal Lewandowski and Grisha Göddertz: “The water starting to bubble out of the restored fountain in 2018 was the moment it became clear the community had reclaimed its square.”
[ 9:15 ] A Ukrainian artist has written fragments of memories of her home on one of the columns in the underpass. There’s a sound installation crackling from speakers – birdsong meets Sonic Youth (from their early work).
[ 10:36 ] Shage Imas, 52, is standing in her shop in the underground station. She’s been doing this for 30 years. The dealers are the only thing that annoy her. Her zero tolerance approach keeps them away. If there’s trouble, the police come. Simple. And it works. Down here, they call her “the sister”. The sister has a baseball bat under the counter.
[ 11:17 ] Martin Karl (38) has just come back from the gym. We’re swivelling back and forth in one of the egg chairs. Martin’s been living in the Agnesviertel district since 2012 and he’s never had any problems on the square. On the contrary, he likes to pop by, do a spot of people-watching and grab a coffee. “I think it’s cool to see how many people come together here during the course of a day,” he says. “Problems only arise if our response is wrong.”
In the afternoon: a flat white, gallons of water and the Pointer Sisters
[ 13:10 ] A flat white with Helle Habenicht outside the café on the square. She’s the person who’s “best clued-up” about all of the relevant people here. In 2018, she wrote her master’s thesis about the square. Now she works freelance for Cologne Council, coordinating the interim use of the area along with her colleagues from the urban planning and culture departments. The council’s involvement marks an about-turn in its approach. Up until around 2017, they’d left it to its fate. But what’s really special is that Helle and her colleagues have loads of fans in the cultural community. Culture and government working hand in hand is rare but it’s necessary if things are to work.
[ 14:30 ] Roman Jungblut joins us. The artist created one of the escalator installations – and the sound installation in the underpass – and almost everything on the square that you need to be able to make it a place for culture. “Everyone here goes the extra mile,” he says. “That’s why it works.” The square has filled up now. The café is full, children are scurrying around, running through the gigantic fountain that forms the heart of the square.
[ 16:30 ] Grisha Göddertz’ father, Wolfgang, built the fountain. We’re now standing barefoot right in the middle of the walk-through “water kinetics sculpture”. 18,000 litres per hour roar through the pumps. “People love the fountain and they’ve claimed back the square,” Grisha tells me. Claimed it back from the dealers too. They’re long gone. No one wants to fight with mums drinking lattes in the sun while their children frolic in the spray.
[ 17:27 ] Preparations for the unofficial summer fete in the square’s art spaces. The “Feierabendchor Nippes” choir are singing “I’m so excited” by the Pointer Sisters.
In the evening: an auction, local history and department 66
[ 18:13 ] Meryem Erkus is sitting in front of her gallery, Gold + Beton. She’s been on Ebertplatz since 2013. She doesn’t think much of the commercial art market. “Art is not a commodity,” in her opinion.
The art spaces on Ebertplatz are the largest interconnected area for alternative art in Cologne.
Meryem Erkus, Galerie Gold+Beton
[ 21:05 ] The auction in the Mouches Volantes art space comes to an end. Half the editorial team from the Kunstforum magazine for contemporary art were in attendance. Ihsan Alisan organised the exhibition, with help from auctioneer Marion Scharmann of Van Ham, to collect money for earthquake victims. He gave up his engineering job in 2020 for Mouches Volantes. “At the moment,” he says, “I find the scene in Cologne more interesting than in Berlin.”
Roman Jungblut: “There are masses of volunteers here who roll up their sleeves and muck in even though there aren’t any official structures for the help they provide. That’s the only reason it works.” Photo: Nils Bröer 
Meryem Erkus: “The first time I attended a gallery opening on the square, it felt like a rite of initiation.” Photo: Nils Bröer 
Ihsan Alisan: “Cologne is still an international hot spot for artists. We’ve got the Art Cologne fair, a fantastic infrastructure and renowned art colleges right on our doorstep.” Photo: Nils Bröer 
Michael Nowottny: “When the square was opened in 1977 – ten years later than planned – it was so unpopular that even the district mayor didn’t turn up.” Photo: Nils Bröer
[ 22:46 ] Michael Nowottny is packing his things up. He was the one who started the whole transformation process at Ebertplatz. His pioneering “laboratory” paved the way for everything else. He knows all the really good stories about the square’s history. The best one about how Ebertplatz came into being is this: “No one knows who planned the square in the 1970s. The urban planning office was called department 66, the pillars in the passage are spaced 6.66 metres apart and the square is hexagonal in shape. And at some point the planners must have been sitting together, in a living room, cigarette ends and beer on the table and a sci-fi series on the television. And someone took a long drag of their cigarette, leaned back and said, ‘I like the look of that’.”
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