Marburg is a city in the German state of Hesse with around 80,000 inhabitants. It is said that the Brothers Grimm came to the University of Marburg to study law, and during their studies began to sort out fairy tales and legends. On Grimm-Dich-Pfad, a Grimm's fairy tale-themed excursion, Marlborough is an important stop, with fairytale factors such as the brave little tailor, Cinderella's crystal shoes, wolves and seven little goats scattered throughout the city.
▲ Grimm-Dich-Pfad partial. Image courtesy of deutsche-maerchenstrasse
In addition to its fairy tale roots, Marburg also has a self-proclaimed "Blindenstadt" (Blind City). As a city suitable for the visually impaired, Marburg's friendliness and respect for the visually impaired is reflected in all aspects, and blind people can often be seen holding guide dogs or walking slowly on quiet paths with white canes, without passers-by deliberately disturbing, supporting or staying away.
▲ White cane. Image courtesy of Deutschlandfunk kultur
More than a hundred years ago, Marburg founded blindness educational institutions and research centers Blindenstudienanstalt (or Blista) to provide opportunities and accommodation for young people who had lost their sight in war. Since then, the institute has created countless inventions for the blind, including the first edition of the blind math and chemistry books, the hearing library for the blind, acoustic traffic lights, city maps for the visually impaired, and more, which they are still working on.
▲ Blista exterior, cobblestone strips to help locate. Image credit: Am Grassenberg
This school for the blind is a microcosm of the daily lives of the visually impaired in Marburg.
Today, every traffic light in Marlborough city centre is equipped with special acoustic and tactile support, bus drivers are trained in parking, ATMs with headphone jacks, buildings with raised maps and floor plans, and miniature bronze models of major attractions such as castles and town squares allow visually impaired visitors to get a visually tangible feel for each landmark as a whole.
▲ Miniature bronze model. Image credit: Alamy
Barrier-free leisure facilities are available throughout the city. The Marlborough City Theatre provides audio descriptions of plays, restaurants produce Braille menus, supermarkets offer purchasing services, and clerks often deal with blind customers. Visually impaired people are also free to participate in equestrian, rowing, football, mountaineering and ski clubs.
The cultural atmosphere here has long adapted to the needs of the visually impaired. One-third of Germany's blind university students study here, and Marburg has the highest proportion of blind students in Germany, and the widest range of degrees for blind people.
▲ Marlborough. Image credit: Frank Rumpenhorst
For the visually impaired, law and psychology are often the most popular course options, as these subjects are based on large amounts of text and can be learned through assistive tools such as screen readers. Now, Blista is opening up the field that has long kept the visually impaired out of the natural sciences. The dangers of laboratory work and the ubiquity of images, charts and graphs are the obvious obstacles.
Beginning in 2013, chemistry teacher Tobias Mahnke invested in the development of a range of multi-sensory tools for teaching the natural sciences, supported by the Department of Chemistry at Phillips University in Marburg. One of them is to help visually impaired students explore how candles burn through thermally expanded paper. The laboratory is also adapted to the needs of visually impaired students, using an electric burner with a perforated metal shell instead of an open Flame Bunsen lamp.
▲ Image courtesy of Blista's official website
The 3D printed plastic model of the curved riverbed, developed by Mahnke colleague Tanja Schapat, allows students to feel where the water is flowing faster or slower, how the water flows shape the contours of the riverbed, and which parts of the riverbed attract fish and grow reeds.
In fact, many of Marburg's accessibility features are not absent elsewhere, but rarely do they appear in such a comprehensive "network". The sound of traffic lights, conversation at bus stops, and sight-impaired people accustomed to interacting with the blind form a friendly network that broadens the world of visually impaired friends.
Retired blind judge Uwe Boysen studied law in Marburg in the late 1960s. In his view, Marburg's sense of community and self-help plays a vital role in stimulating innovation:
It gives you courage and gives you the courage to try new things.
Of course, there is room for improvement in Marburg. For example, the electric vehicles that have emerged in recent years are very quiet, but many blind people rely on their ears in traffic. One direction of improvement is to issue a special audible warning signal when an electric vehicle approaches the side of the road. To be sure, acoustic traffic lights won't be the last innovation of the "Blind City."
▲ Malbork Castle. Image credit: PhilippN
Bahaddin Batmaz, a blind software developer and accessibility trainer in Marburg, believes that these accessibility features actually provide important lessons for urban innovation, and good design is good for everyone:
Linking technological innovation to human and social factors is very beneficial.
▲ Marlborough Traffic Lights.
Voice broadcasts at bus stops also bring convenience to ordinary people, and when screen readers are more accessible to websites, their search rankings usually rise, and accessibility is needed by everyone.
Dago Schelin, a media research scholar at Phillips University, describes Marburg as a "smart city for the blind," a kind of intelligence that is not centered around digital technology but is more human-centered, centered on supportive interactions and accessible services between different groups of people. At this level, Marlborough could become a "reference for the smart cities of the future".
▲ Compilation source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210916-the-school-that-change-a-city-into-a-place-for-the-blind