For this stroll on 19 May 1993, Gerhard Lang created the portable zebra crossing with zoological stripes and the green pedestrian as a logo for the event. The procession through backyards, car parks, alleys and main roads of downtown Kassel was designed by Helmut Aebischer (typographer), Ruth Jureczek (architect), Gerhard Lang and students from the faculties of architecture, urban planning and landscape planning. Accompanied by 600 strollers, the zebra wandered through urban terrain in tribute to Lucius Burckhardt (1925-2003), who had just been made professor emeritus at the Gesamthochschule Kassel (now the University of Kassel). Burckhardt had founded the field of Spaziergangswissenschaft (Strollology) as part of his research into landscape aesthetics. The instruments of this science, his keen sense of observation and his revealing reflections served to continue the criticism of prevailing planning practice that he had been conducting since the 1950s. His analyses were an integral part of the excursion in May 1993; this and other highly symbolic public performances illustrated the numerous planned obstacles that pedestrians now had to overcome in the city.

Lucius Burckhardt on Lang’s zebra crossing:

Moving once more through the city, as was presumably possible in the old days: you cross the street, there where you want to and where you can cut short your route, i.e. not just where traffic planners had a zebra crossing painted because they thought this was where you would be the least nuisance for cars. [...] Pedestrians can avoid being arrested for jaywalking simply by bringing along their own zebra crossing.

[From: das Zebra streifen, with texts by Lucius Burckhardt, Gerhard Lang and others, ed. by Helmut Aebischer, Kassel University, Department for the Study of Town Planning/Landscape Planning, Volume 20, Kassel 1994. More about Lucius Burckhardt: see Glossary]

Ill. I: Thanks to the mobile zebra crossing we were able to cross Kurt-Schumacher-Straße without harm. Photo: Angela Siever

Ill. II: Lang’s logo for the stroll Zebra Crossing. Graphic design: Helmut Aebischer. Photo: Gerhard Lang