Räume der Demokratie. Vom Ratssaal bis zur Mehrzweckhalle

Räume der Demokratie. Vom Ratssaal bis zur Mehrzweckhalle – Führung 1

Whether in a historic council chamber, a functional meeting room or a multi-purpose hall – democracy is discussed every day in a wide variety of places. With the exhibition project Spaces of Democracy: From the Council Chamber to the Multi-purpose Hall, the KulturRegion FrankfurtRheinMain will, from October 2026, be highlighting selected venues in the Rhine-Main region where local political participation takes place.

In the Rhine-Main region, hundreds of elected political bodies at local level meet regularly. Most of their members serve in a voluntary capacity. The exhibition project presents 20 exemplary venues where people deliberate, discuss, negotiate differing interests and make political decisions. How are the spaces in which local democracy takes place designed, and what significance do they hold for democratic processes and political participation?

The exhibition is based on photographs by Sonja Schwarz, who works as a freelance photographer in Frankfurt am Main and specialises, amongst other things, in architectural, reportage and corporate photography. A graduate in communication design, she focuses on the interplay between space, use and social significance, and uses her personal visual language to reveal architectural structures in new, often unfamiliar ways.