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CUI BONO?

THE CITY AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIETAL NEGOTIATION

Christof Mayer

How do we imagine the city in which we want to live? The answer to this seemingly simple question assumes a common understanding of what we mean when we talk about cities. Taking post-Wall Berlin as a case study, this text explores the agency of urban activism and temporary projects and their implications for long term urban developments.

City as space—Space as a function of interaction

Our traditional image of the city has little to do with the complex social, economic and political contingencies that currently define urban reality. For quite some time, the image of the city as a territorial entity, one with clear demarcations between city and countryside, has ceased to correspond to the actual conditions of the development that is at the heart of our burgeoning urbanisation; ‘the new millennium has ushered in the Age of Cities. For the first time in human history, the majority of the world’s population lives in cities.’¹ Yet we still lack suitable tools to understand the city, indeed, to grasp it.

The term ‘city’ is perhaps misleading, as it invokes ‘the city’ as an object. The city as a social reality is also the space for the daily activities of the citizens that live in it. Space is thus not an object, or an independent construct that can be considered separate from human activity. ‘Humans produce space. Space is not only conscripted into the actions of everyday life, it is also produced by these actions.’² This now means something concrete for the production of cities, or for an urban practice that understands the city not as the object, but rather as a space for possibility, for design and for negotiation, in which the users are not only consumers, but also citizens, and hence demand participation, and their right to the city.³

In opposition stands the fact that space in a neoliberal, capitalist society is a commodity that is marketed for monetary gain with no regard for the interests of the common good. This leads to a segregated, de-mixed and exclusive sort of city, one that disregards all those lacking adequate financial means to be able to participate. This use of space as a commodity follows the logic of a capitalisation of space, whereby the idea of capital is reduced to economic capital alone. Other types of capital—cultural, social or symbolic—are largely overlooked.⁴ Unless spaces can be marketed in an alternative way and capitalised upon economically—for example through temporary uses, which enhance the symbolic value of locations and thus contribute to a property’s increase in value—the added value instilled by this short-term use benefits the owner alone.

This commodification of land is surely one of the greatest problems facing today’s urban production. This problem is a consequence of both the speculation on public property and the knock-on effects it has on the market. Access to space is a prerequisite and foundation for urban formation processes. This can be permanent or only temporary—be it through short-term occupation, interim use, standard rental contracts or long-term leasing. This shows that the use of land and the spatial development that this allows is possible even without owning the land, with the benefit that property speculation is forgone. Thus, a policy is required that creates a framework for such an approach. This framework should allow for some degree of leeway in regard to permissible urban developments and their configurations, and also limit the exclusively economic valuation of property that currently defines our cities.

Various time horizons define the tactical or strategic course of action for an urban practice—from short-term interventionist procedures to long-term planning.⁵ One approach might not necessarily preclude the others; indeed, they can complement one another through a process of negotiation. The approach depends critically on the particular notion of city, which brings us back to the question we posed at the outset. The quality of a city is measured by its diversity, which develops in the negotiation processes of an urban practice. For Henri Lefebvre, space is a result of social exchange. He differentiates between conceived, perceived and lived space, and promotes a practice that appropriates urban spaces and perceives not only their exchange value, but their practical value as well.⁶ This practice is central to the perspectives of an urban political economy based not only on land resources, but also on social sustainability.

Urban lab—Berlin

Perhaps more than other cities, Berlin has a pronounced culture of appropriation. This is partly a result of its history as a divided city. Since the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, West Berlin suffered from a continual loss of inhabitants; it became a shrinking city. Yet at the same time, its ‘island’ character stimulated the development of the confined urban space as a biotope for young and creative people. West Berlin was a place where one could be different; a place harbouring the widest range of social, political and artistic ideas; a place where new modes of living could be, and were, tested. The western part of the city—enclosed by the Wall—nurtured the creativity of its subcultures, along with their political resistance and alternative designs for living. Even in East Berlin there were milieus, in opposition to the political climate of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), that sought social and spatial niches within the repressive system. It was not uncommon to find neglected turn-of-the-century blocks of flats in Prenzlauer Berg—an East Berlin district known for its counter-culture—along with abandoned garages and garden colonies, as well as Christian churches offering shelter for dissidents.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of the two German states led to a unique set of conditions that defined the Berlin lifestyle into the late 1990s. The collapse of the GDR economy after the opening of the Wall and the emigration to West Germany of many former East German citizens meant an excess of Freiraum—a word encompassing the ideas of both ‘open space’ and ‘freedom.’ For a brief period during the reunification process, the east of the city found itself in a situation in which the government’s regulative legal stipulations were far from strictly enforced. The potential spaces this atmosphere bore were just the sort that creative types from both East and West Berlin knew how to exploit. This formed the basis for a multi-layered urban practice that would soon become a draw card for people from all over the world. Vacant buildings and properties were reoccupied and reprogrammed. The cost of living was low. Experimentation was in the air; with the fall of the Wall everything seemed possible. This led to countless informal, self-initiated projects such as squatted blocks of flats, illegal bars and clubs, and makeshift galleries. Berlin’s transformative years offered fertile ground for the selfdetermined design of lifestyles, housing and work.

Berlin’s persistent and ongoing appeal has developed without—and perhaps despite—urban planning or urban development policy. The authoritarian gesture by which half-baked façade nostalgia was cemented as the only true urbanist dogma for Berlin recalls the pathological behaviour of parents who furnish their child’s first flat according to their own tastes—which is exactly what the centre of Berlin looks like today, with its dreary sandstone blocks. The opportunity to redefine the city socially, spatially and aesthetically was wasted.⁷

The unification treaty dictating the dissolution of the GDR and its accession into the Federal Republic of Germany specified that, in lieu of awarding compensation, properties were to be retroceded to their previous owners.⁸ This covered property holdings that had been expropriated without compensation in the former GDR and transferred to public ownership. Because the GDR had no such regulations, the scope of the law was expanded to include the loss of assets as a consequence of Nazi persecution. This led to considerable turbulence in the real estate market in the east of Berlin and ultimately resulted—in combination with the effect of the funds issued by the state for renovating and modernising existing properties—in massive rent increases in the housing market, such that many districts experienced an almost complete demographic exchange within ten years.

To alleviate some of Berlin’s massive debt, the sale of state-owned land and real estate led to further privatisation of municipal property throughout Berlin. The generated returns were only marginally profitable and the city’s economic gain short-lived. After all, from a long-term perspective the transactions reduced the leeway for policy formulation to mere years, and thus opportunities for sustainable urban development were wasted. In particular, the sale of state-owned housing associations and the privatisation of a great number of social housing units resulted in a lack of affordable dwellings and accelerated the nascent processes of gentrification.

A vision of Tempelhof Freiheit.

With the turn of the millennium came a gradual change. Berlin’s ethereal and improvised sense of spirit began to vanish. The city’s former embrace of life was replaced by an ever-growing compulsion for security. This trend has accelerated significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. The resistance to this trend expressed itself not only in protests, but also in the ever more strategic formulation of alternative economic models and the establishment of new alliances.

Wir sind hier nicht zum Spass ⁹

The planned closure of Tempelhof Airport and its replacement on a different site was part of a treaty conceived of at the end of the 1990s—a time when the common belief was that Berlin, as Germany’s restored capital, would undergo rapid growth and increased prosperity. Whilst that transformation would not to take place until almost 20 years later, the decision to close Tempelhof was upheld, and a master plan for its transformation was developed by the city.

A rare instance of vast open space located in the heart of a city, Tempelhof was a tabula rasa on valuable land. The master plan stipulated re-zoning for the entire airport site, mostly as residential. However, prior to its planned closure, it became clear that due to a weakened real estate market, the existing master plan could not be implemented in the short term without private investment from outside the government. This caused concern for the affordability of such housing developments. The pending cessation of operations and a looming election created considerable political pressure against the site being used for commercial development, triggering a desperate search by the sitting government for alternative visions and models for the Tempelhofer Feld, an area roughly 365,000 square metres. In 2006, the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing commissioned a study by Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof— Idea Workshop Tempelhof. The group, formed especially for this project, was an agglomeration of spatial activists and practitioners working in Berlin comprised of mbup, Urban Catalyst and raumlaborberlin.

In parallel to the top-down master planning program, the Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof study seized on Berlin’s existing expertise in informal planning, employing a bottom-up approach of activation through use. As the Senate’s master plan could not be re-routed at this point, the study assumed an incremental and adaptable approach to its implementation. Whilst the master-plan thought in terms of the overall and indelible design for the airfield, the Ideenwerkstatt concept concentrated on the initial five years after its closure.

As an alternative model of land use to standard development, the project speculated that sustainable urban development could instead rely financially on long-term leasehold agreements with various groups. The aim was to factor greater cultural, social and symbolic capital into the process, allowing all actors to share in the success and value creation of the collective achievement. Through a varied and adaptive approach, the study could run as a series of experiments, testing ideas that could later be accepted or rejected depending on their relative success. This allowed for a level of flexibility and fitness not afforded by the master-plan, and has since become an approach employed by raumlabor in many projects.

The most important actors were the so-called Raumpioniere (Urban Pioneers) who consisted of various cultural entrepreneurs, initiatives, individuals and associations. Their approach involved exploring and activating terrain, triggering a process of open negotiation and urbanisation. Some Raumpioniere were temporary users, whilst others became involved in the long-term development of the former airport. Actors participated by proposing uses for designated areas on the airfield in which to test their ideas and desires, thereby activating the site as a series of spatial laboratories. Proposals included a bicycle workshop, a skate park and timber workshops. The most successful project was the Allmende Kontor, an urban gardening project with over 2,000 members, which still exists today.

In a politically motivated response to the Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof, strategic organisational structures were proposed by the State of Berlin and the Senate of Urban Development, which reflected the insights gained from local activities by the Raumpioniere and which were supposed to provide support as the official master plan was implemented. In practice though, the invitation of groups like Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof and the Raumpioniere to supplement the master-plan suffered at the outset from a lack of mutual trust between administration representatives and the actors of the informal urban development. As the dialogue that was originally sought never transpired on equal footing, the recommendations of the study were only implemented half-heartedly by the Senate. As a result, raumlabor learnt that empowering people to meaningfully impact their own urban environment would necessitate seeking out pockets of space within the city that are unimportant enough in the eyes of the Senate to fly under the radar of political bureaucracy.

Eventually in 2010, the Raumpioniere were essential in realising the citizens’ initiative which proposed to retain the entire former airport grounds as public space.¹⁰ The decision was finally ratified in 2014 following a city-wide referendum. The rejection of the existing planning framework amounted to a popular vote by Berliners on development rights to the city. Tempelhofer Feld was to remain open for public use and all forms of development became prohibited.

raumlabor used this referendum as an opportunity to turn a once-temporary neighbourhood centre, the JuniPark, into a long-term project for the purpose of implementing the strategy they had developed under Ideenwerkstatt Tempelhof.¹¹ The resulting Coop Campus is an initiative of Kulturhaus Schlesische 27 and raumlabor. In cooperation with the owners of the land, Evangelischer Friedhofsverband Berlin Mitte, the project continues to develop and examine models for incremental urban transformation of a former cemetery’s terrain vague into a vibrant and diverse urban neighbourhood. The project is made up of sub-projects like Die Gärtnerei Berlin.¹²

A response to Germany’s burgeoning refugee situation, Die Gärtnerei examines integration, inter-cultural sharing, housing and urban production through the operation of commercial flower gardens, free language classes and neighbourhood gatherings open to new and long-term residents alike. It is a space that facilitates the integration of ever more diverse actors and stakeholder groups into the incremental enrichment of life in their new city. It descends from the initial aim of Ideenwerkstatt except that it now operates outside the cumbersome and rigid planning mandates of any government body. Projects like this at once circumvent and complement the methods of planning ordinarily employed by government bodies. They require fewer resources and thus entail less risk; more experiments and visions can be tested, thereby creating an inherently flexible planning method. By flipping the traditional value system for built form projects, in these small and experimental approaches to city making there is no really no such thing as failure, merely learning.

Spreefeld balconies.

Photograph by © Andrea Kroth

Spreefeld, Optionsraum.

Photograph by © Andrea Kroth

Berlin liebt dich13

In the past ten years, a number of initiatives and projects have been launched that consider Berlin’s shifting economic and political conditions. Some seek new forms of communal living and working as well as conceptualising alternative forms of project development. Many projects focus on new commons, areas beyond market and state in which people are directly involved in the design of their living environments.

Prinzessinnengarten is an urban community garden established in 2009 as a temporary-use initiative operated by Nomadisch Grün, a non-profit limited liability company. This area of 6,000 square metres once barren land in the middle of the city, is now used to cultivate flowers and vegetables. The plot, owned by the Berlin state government, was and continues to be at risk of privatisation. With the initial lease agreement limited to one year with the option for one-year extensions, the entire garden was conceived as a nomadic operation, exclusively using raised beds made from crates and sacks. Following public pressure via petition, the lease agreement has since been amended to increase the extension term from one to five years. But the Prinzessinnengarten is more than just a space for vegetable crops in the city; it has created a space for a wide spectrum of activities. The potential for cooperation and open workshops along with the garden café and cultural events have made the Prinzessinnengarten a vibrant meeting point. It has also become a beacon beyond its neighbourhood of what can be achieved with collective action in Berlin following its post-reunification privatisation and relative neoliberalisation.

In terms of communal housing, Germany’s healthy culture of Baugruppen (building cooperatives) have made important contributions to the development of new models for urban cohabitation globally. What began as a social model for building and living on the fringe of development tactics, is now gaining recognition in today’s neoliberal landscape as a genuine alternative to the conventional business model of building, for owners and architects alike. There are positive social outcomes for inhabitants and the surroundings whilst owner-occupiers are necessarily invested as active participants in meaningful neighbourhood development.

A successful example in Berlin is the Spreefeld project, located on the bank of the Spree river. The building and housing cooperative founded in 2009, ‘saw its purpose as the creation of housing for cross-generational, socially mixed and neighbourly forms of working and living with sustainable means and to the benefit of its members.’¹⁴ The building cooperative and three participating architecture firms sought to build a community, as a community.

Spreefeld, viewed from Spree River.

JuniPark,

PenthausBerlin,

As a building Spreefeld is a political statement advocating for a socially conscious organisation of housing, where private and public are spatially intertwined. This resulted in deliberate decisions to democratise access to a technically private piece of prime Berlin real estate. Berliners out for a stroll can still reach the bank of the River Spree at any time through Spreefeld’s site. Anyone can apply to use the Optionsräume (optional spaces) on the ground floor regardless of whether they live at Spreefeld or not. These spaces can be used temporarily as exhibition rooms, auditoriums or for workshops, so long as they contribute to the cooperative with programmatic input that is not principally profit-oriented. Living at Spreefeld carries the requisite of participation in the cooperative which governs the apartments and shared spaces. Residents are expected to invest their time, opinions and expertise rather than capital. As a result, rents at Spreefeld are kept at the same level as public housing for those with low incomes, offering a level of security and permanence difficult to find in the conventional rental market.

A more radical approach has been employed by the Mietshäuser Syndikat (apartment-house syndicate), which has been active in Berlin since 2003. The syndicate is a cooperative and non-commercial holding company for the joint purchasing of blocks of rental flats to extract them from the real estate market and provide long-term affordable housing. The syndicate has its origins in the political left as well as the cooperative housing and squatter scenes, and attempts to realistically implement approaches to the socially responsible and ecologically minded handling of money and land. Mietshäuser Syndikat supports and advises projects in financial and legal matters, yet contributes no capital of its own. To date, it has assisted in the acquisition process of 125 apartment buildings (17 of which are in Berlin) equating to approximately 22,500 square meters of living space for 600 people. Adhering to the dominant economic order, this model of activism uses a combination of collective action and capital to liberate capital.

In 2010, raumlabor realised PenthouseBerlin, a project in cooperation with artist Christian von Borries which explored yet another path to alternative housing. After being forced to switch studios several times due to a lease termination and multiple increases in rent, von Borries resolved to invest his money in real estate, but in such a way as to question current notions of housing by constructing it himself.

Aside from the limited budget, finding a suitable space was another considerable challenge. Not only did the space need to fulfil the necessary legal stipulations of building codes, it also had to be available for long-term lease. Von Borries found a rooftop site which was beyond any use to a developer, and whose owner was open to the idea of his experiment. The brief to raumlabor was for an architectural framework that guaranteed maximum flexibility in order for the artist to implement his own visions. In addition, the client wanted to construct as much of the studio as possible himself, which greatly determined choice of materials and the level of detailing. In the end, raumlabor employed an off-the-shelf greenhouse system that proved highly flexible in tackling the challenging conditions of the site.¹⁵ Re-framing the luxury status of the penthouse, PenthouseBerlin is an inventive example of individual living and working space achieved with modest financial means, utilising space outside the developer’s purview.

ExRotaprint is a work location promoting cooperation and exchange where commercial enterprises, social institutions and creatives operate their business. It is a private non-profit founded in 2007 with the goal of reinvigorating the site of a former printing press manufacturer, Rotaprint, a state-owned property located in the Berlin’s Wedding. Negotiations with state and district governments lasted three years before the property was effectively purchased through a leasehold agreement. ExRotaprint strives to be an active participant in the ongoing development of its urban district in flux, yet (contrary to classic studio buildings) it does so by embracing a mixed-use philosophy comprising manual crafts, studios and social institutions at various levels. ExRotaprint is an urban interface. The goal of creating a long-term location for heterogeneous use is supported by a project space rented out to individual users when necessary. Furthermore, a public cafeteria attracts many customers not necessarily affiliated with ExRotaprint, and has become a popular venue for locals. In place of the traditional workplace monoculture, ExRotaprint offers a macro-social environment: ‘it is a reality initiated by artists and created from the viewpoint of art. A realm of possibility has emerged here, one that is non-profit, non-ideological and marked by solidarity, yet contingent upon agreements and consensus. ExRotaprint forsakes the prospect of profits through ownership in favour of stability and participation whilst balancing a heterogeneous array of interests. The profit of the project lies in its durability and its spheres of interaction.’¹⁶

ExRotaprint.

In contrast, the initiators of Aufbau Haus sought a private backer to finance their project.¹⁷ Another state-owned property, Aufbau Haus also occupies the site of a former printing factory. The aim was to transform it into a hub to house a theatre, gallery, design college and other creative yet commercial ventures. Once an investor was found, a long negotiation process unfolded between the project initiators, the district of Kreuzberg and the federal state of Berlin, the current owner of the property. Negotiations were concluded in 2008 with the establishment of the Moritzplatz Development Group. Furthermore, with the district mayor expressing his support for the project, the state of Berlin agreed to the sale through a direct procurement procedure. One stipulation for approving the sale, was the agreement the use of the property by creative industries for a minimum of ten years. Whilst not the most obvious or colourful example of bottom-up urban activation, the merit of this project was its success in securing the property not with the highest bid, but through concept and vision; an approach which would become a precedent in Berlin. Moreover, they used the political connections gained in the process to support and enable their direct neighbour, Prinzessinnengärten.

Alternatively, the leaders of the initiative to secure der Haus der Statistik (House of Statistics) for creative public use opted for an entirely different process. A building complex on Berlin’s most well known square Alexanderplatz, der Haus der Statistik consists of five buildings with a total gross floor area of 40,000 square metres which has been abandoned since 2008. As part of an art action in autumn 2015, a giant poster was affixed to the façade of one of the disused buildings announcing the emergence of spaces for art, culture, education and social projects.

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