1st
Hamburg is taking down the traditional Litfass advertising columns, replacing them with ‘city furnisher’ Schroer’s stylish rotating cylinder. It rolls past the pedestrian and, more importantly, traffic three exposures to big advertisers campaigns with every full circle in estimated 30 seconds. What goes away with the old columns, which go back to the time when governments used wallplastered announcements to inform citizens, is the last opportunity for small advertisers to bring their message to public attention - a service the demand for which has not been thriving lately. The city saves however a few dozen old columns from deconstruction and repurposes them as ‘Culture Columns’, acknowledging that a lot of publicly subsidized institutions like museums, theaters and nonprofit groups would be deprived of very few means to keep up a minimum level of public awareness.
