Production line of the creative industry
Innovation networks do not come about by chance, they have to be created. The Austrian Western Railway line was built by Empress Elisabeth, stretches from Vienna to Salzburg and is still part of ÖBB’s core network. At the kick-off event on the topic of innovation hubs, Chris Müller (Director of Tabakfabrik Linz, CEO CMb.industries) presented the idea of developing HUBs along the entire route, which are connected by ÖBB’s infrastructure, using the example of the revitalization efforts at Remise Amstetten. With the driving force of the creative industries, a pulsating ribbon could be drawn through Austria, forming a powerful European counterpart to Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley. The digital nomads and new craft guilds thread themselves along a HUBtic production chain and operate under a common communication umbrella.
The expansion of mobility has always been the decisive key event for the emergence of innovation and civilization. While we used to believe that we would lose our souls if we moved faster than a horse, today we know that we will lose them if we don’t. The Pony Express connected the entire North American continent, the Main-Danube Canal opened the way for large-scale shipping, the Silk Road brought trade goods to the whole world and this route is currently being rebuilt by China with enormous effort. Ancient trades also knew that mobility increased their maturity – carpenters went on a journey and cathedral builders on a journey to achieve master quality.
The new AUTline along the Westbahn line can be accessed in Vienna, Salzburg, Linz or Innsbruck and offers workshops, fab labs, programming rooms, future guilds, new crafts and new living in its locations docked by ÖBB. Work and living labs are put on rails in the true sense of the word – with innovative concepts that see networked structures rather than separate worlds. The HUBs along the AUTline act like neurons that form a spanning neuronal network via synapses. The AUTline thus forms a pulsating strand of the Austrian creative industries. Its offshoots reach deep into the regions. They connect and reconcile rural communities with cities. The neural network absorbs the rural exodus, counteracts sealing and promotes a superstructure for creative entrepreneurship.
