PROLOEWE.

Starting May 21, 2026, a research outcome from the LOEWE Center emergenCITY and the Center for Application and Transfer in Digital Resilience (DiReX) at TU Darmstadt will be on display at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt: the "Litfaßsäule 4.0" (Advertising Column 4.0).

With the Litfaßsäule 4.0, researchers from the Department of "Design and Urban Development" have transformed a familiar piece of urban furniture into a new tool for crisis communication.The column – which, thanks to a combination of a fuel cell and a solar module, remains operational for up to 72 hours even during a power outage – features an additional display where information and warnings for the local population can be shown.

 Until June 28, the museum is presenting a model of the column, along with photographs of the prototype currently installed at Riegerplatz in Darmstadt, as part of the exhibition "Design for Democracy: What Design Can Achieve!". The exhibition takes 25 design examples from the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main region as its starting point to shed light on the relationship between design and democracy. In doing so, it examines the efficacy of good design and demonstrates the contribution that design can make toward addressing societal challenges.

The Litfaßsäule 4.0 is presented here as an example of how design can contribute to overcoming societal crises; for when developing resilient infrastructure for cities, the objective is not merely to ensure that technical solutions function reliably during a crisis. Equally important is the question of how such technologies must be designed to ensure they are accepted within the public space and utilized by the population.

Through religion, people look toward that which lies beyond the visible world. However, most believers also look to religion for assistance with the problems of everyday life. In Christian Europe, these hopes long found expression in "spiritual home medicine chests": assembled without strict rules, these collections – right up until the 20th century – contained religious and religiously inspired objects from which people sought relief for physical as well as spiritual ailments. From Tuesday, May 12, to Friday, July 31, the exhibition "With Rosary & Scrap Madonna: Religious Everyday Companions of the Modern Age in Dialogue"—located in the Department of History (Historisches Seminar) on the 3rd floor of the IG Farben Building – illustrates the kinds of objects that served this purpose.

Many of these objects were directly linked to Christianity – yet by no means all: devotional images could be found lying side by side with silk threads soaked in snake’s blood.

Part of the exhibition is the "Secular Home Medicine Chest" ("Weltliche Hausapotheke") by contemporary artist Eva Ulm, which enters into a dialogue with the historical pieces. The exhibition – funded by the LOEWE Center "Dynamics of the Religious" and the DFG Research Group "Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities" – was organized by the academic platform "Interface Religion" (*Schnittstelle Religion*), coordinated by Zbiranski. Academic direction for the exhibition is provided by historians Prof. Birgit Emich and Prof. Xenia von Tippelskirch.

The exhibition opened on May 12 at 5 pm with a vernissage. It is open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 10 pm, and Saturdays from 8 am to 6 pm. It is located in sections Q 4 and 5, as well as in the Study Lounge. A small portion of the exhibition is accessible only during the Study Lounge’s opening hours; these can be found here: https://www.geschichte.uni-frankfurt.de/49425245/Studienlounge