Future Chorweiler: New prospects for the north of Cologne

Cologne, 14th October 2026 – At a reception hosted by Lord Mayor Torsten Burmester at Cologne’s Historic Town Hall, Leona Dusanovic, the second recipient of the Gottfried Böhm Scholarship, presented the findings of her year-long project. Her work centres on the question of how Chorweiler can continue to develop, drawing on its own history and existing structures.

Leona Dusanovic is from Melbourne, Australia, and has been working as an architect since 2017. She completed her Master’s degree at RMIT University in Melbourne. Her work has been recognised with awards including the Victorian Architecture Award and the Fender Katsalidis Prize. In 2025, she was selected for the Gottfried Böhm Fellowship, having prevailed over 104 applications from 45 countries and six continents.

Under the title ‘Future Chorweiler’, Dusanovic focuses on everyday life in the neighbourhood. Her design takes two existing sites – a shopping centre and a car dealership – as its starting point. From these, she develops two neighbourhood centres intended to create new spaces for social interaction and community. For Liverpooler Platz, the design includes, amongst other things, a new city park. For Feldkassel, Dusanovic is designing a primary school with a forest on the roof. In doing so, she draws on themes closely linked to the history of Chorweiler. These include different conceptions of community, the relationship between town and countryside, and the neighbourhood’s development from a rural area into an urban district.

Gottfried Böhm’s architectural legacy also plays a role in her work. A visit to St Matthew’s Church, north of Chorweiler, in 2024 provided important inspiration for her project. Dusanovic describes the place as a space designed for everyday life.

Reception in the historic town hall

The reception was opened by Cologne’s Lord Mayor, Torsten Burmester. In his welcoming address, he praised the Gottfried Böhm Scholarship as an important catalyst for urban development. The scholarship, he said, offered the opportunity to view Cologne from new perspectives. Dusanovic’s work demonstrated this using Chorweiler as an example, whilst specifically focusing on the history and existing structures of the neighbourhood.

The opening remarks were followed by statements from Professor Sylvia Heuchemer, President of Cologne University of Applied Sciences, and Susanne Fabry, Chair of the Friends and Supporters of Cologne University of Applied Sciences e. V. Fabry emphasised that the scholarship gives postgraduate female architects and urban planners the opportunity to engage intensively with Cologne for a year. At the same time, she highlighted the programme’s international impact and the extent to which Gottfried Böhm’s work and his architectural legacy extend beyond Cologne.

In his closing remarks, Prof. Paul Böhm, son of the late architect Gottfried Böhm, paid tribute to Dusanovic’s work: “It is important that we continually engage with architecture and with the question of how our built environment shapes the way we live together. The particular merit of this fellowship lies in taking an open and unbiased look at Cologne and re-examining existing structures. Through her work, Leona Dusanovic demonstrates how architecture can open up new perspectives on a neighbourhood and provide impetus for its further development.”

The exhibition is open to the public free of charge until 31 October 2026 in the Spanish Wing of the Historic Town Hall and offers anyone interested the opportunity to discover the results of Leona Dusanovic’s ‘Future Chorweiler’ project.

About the Gottfried Böhm Scholarship
The Gottfried Böhm Scholarship supports female architects and urban planners at postgraduate level who have a particular interest in the connection between architecture and urban planning. Under the patronage of Cologne’s Lord Mayor, Torsten Burmester, this one-year residential scholarship takes place in the city of Cologne. The scholarship holder will have the opportunity to spend a year working on creative and visionary projects in architecture and urban planning for Cologne and its surrounding areas. During this period, they will receive free accommodation, a workspace in a creative environment in the heart of the city, and a monthly grant totalling 2,500 euros. The fellowship is organised and administered by the Association of Friends and Patrons of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Technischen Hochschule Köln e.V.). Through this fellowship, the City of Cologne and the sponsors wish to honour the Pritzker Prize laureate, who passed away in 2021.

At the reception for the Gottfried Böhm Scholarship at the Historic Town Hall,
from left: Kevin Krukau, Prof. Sylvia Heuchemer, Thomas Müller, Frank Siegburg,
scholarship holder Leona Dusanovic, Susanne Fabry and Prof. Paul Böhm.