The staircase at Herdbrücke in Ulm is built into the historic city wall. It is located at the edge of the old town directly bordering the bank of the Danube river. The stairs had formerly served as a connection between the city and the river side and the space was equipped with public rest rooms. As measure of social control, access was restricted by the city since the 1980s and finally closed in the early 2000s. Since then, the place increasingly fell into disrepair and became infamous as “Müll-Loch” (garbage hole).

In 2013 curator Martin Leibinger included the site in the exhibition series “Kunst für Alle!”. A temporary installation by Nicolas Vionnet & Wouter Sibum played with the dynamics of the space in a humorous way. Instead of garbage falling down into the staircase, a 4m high fountain arose from it. During the project, the work met with a very positive response. The originally planned duration of 3 weeks turned into 3 months. During this time, the fountain became a meeting place for a small circle of the local cultural scene. This gave rise to the idea of continuing to use the staircase as an art venue with a bar. The exhibition organizers carried this idea through the political authorities and initially got it approved for two years. In fact, the project called “Stiege” was run as an art venue from 2014 to 2019 and later continued as a bar.