The Kiosk as an Element of the Socio-Cultural Neighborhood

Kiosks are astonishing places, over decades they became valuable, identity constituting places in the city landscape. They welcome everybody - regardless salary, clothing or social standing. Inclusive and nevertheless diverse in their appearance, kiosks adjust perfectly to their surroundings: physically to the location in the city and emotionally to the wishes of the customers. As an adaptable urban place, it is accepted as it is: honest, rough and matchless. Unique in their urban context, kiosks are socially important for the neighborhood as well. People meet and talk randomly, stay as long as they want and keep in touch with each other in an unconventional setting. As an informal, timeless place in a mostly planned surrounding, kiosks are connected to the location they are placed in. By shaping its surroundings, they are creating identity: an unparalleled typology in our everyday context. The outer world of dynamic process challenges the kiosk, as does the societal change. Although kiosks are very adaptable, they are still facing these problems of digitalization, extinction of the city centers and longer opening hours of supermarkets. But in order to preserve the character of a city, remember its stories and keep its diversity alive, kiosks need to remain a part of the urban environment. Against this background the paper discusses the potential of the kiosk as a unique phenomenon in the urban context and its possibility to create an expressive platform for the local community. Despite of that, it draws attention to the crucial points in the handling of urban development as well as the loss of identity of cities.