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Self-Made Public Space, Berlin, Germany

“The idea of public space has never been guaranteed. It has only been won through concerted struggle…  struggle is the only way that the right to public space can be maintained and the only way that social justice can be advanced.”

Don Mitchell, political scientist

“Public space is always in some sense in a state of emergence, never complete and always contested”

Sophie Watson, social scientist

Berlin is a city “doomed always to become and never to be.” 

Karl Scheffler, German art historian

"In good and in evil, Berlin is the trustee of German history, which has left its scars here as nowhere else."

Richard von Weisacker, former president of the Federal Republic of Germany

Berlin is "a fascinating montage of conflicting histories, scales, forms, and spaces." 

Daniel Libesskind, architect of the Jewish Museum, Berlin 

PROPOSAL 

Informal acts of public realm reinterpretation represent small yet persistent challenges against the increasingly regulated, privatized and diminished forms of public space. Around the globe “resurgent” use of public space has become an increasingly common phenomena amid growing corporatization and globalization. Examples include the overtaking, painting, and reclaiming of street intersections in Portland Oregon by the group City Repair, “space hijacking” in London by the group Space Hijackers which perform acts from “Guerrilla Benching” to “Guerrilla Street Planting”, underpass dance parties in densely populated Beijing, China, and perhaps most poignant, the occupation of public space to demand change in Tahrir Square in Cairo and Zigotti Park in New York City. These rebellious acts are not isolated incidents, but rather reflect distinct public reactions to specific social and political settings.

Berlin, Germany is one of the earliest and most vibrant contemporary examples of a self-made urban space phenomena. While every society is in transition, few have experienced transformation as abruptly and pervasively as former communist bloc nations. Berlin, a city deeply saturated with historic democratic struggles gives us insight into political and social constructs of upheaval and democratization that affect the use, understanding and meaning of public space. 

In 1937 Adolf Hitler had a vision to transform Berlin from the sprawling metropolis into “Germania”, the centerpiece of a Greater German ‘World Empire.’ Centered on a grand boulevard running through the heart of the city, the plan envisioned some of the largest public spaces and monuments the world has dared dream. These spaces rather than a celebration of public life were grandiose visions of propaganda to symbolize the power of the State and the Nazi regime. However, very little of Germania was ever realized.

During World War II, more than 50 percent of Berlin’s structures were destroyed, followed by over 45 years of separation into east and west sectors during the Cold War, and then finally the collapse of Berlin Wall in 1989. These challenging circumstances altered and redefined the archetypal categories of neighborhood parks, public plazas, civic architecture, and other conventional forms of public space and social infrastructure. During this period distinctive forms of opportunism and social capital were developed to cope with communist ideologies, which in turn affected the city both socially and spatially. In the absence of a functioning economy, people repurposed public spaces for economic means such as growing food on urban plots to supplement what little could be purchased with low wages, a depreciated currency and inflated prices.

In West Berlin, these years also witnessed many demonstrations and initiatives against destructive and elite urban renewal projects, giving rise to a tradition of illegal building occupation. The Berlin Wall, a symbol of division and communism, became a public and divisive artistic canvas for the means of protest through informal art and graffiti.

Almost immediately upon the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Berliners responded to their new and unexpected circumstances with a flight to developing capitalistic opportunities and social change. The skills of opportunism and the means of social capital were then adapted and made useful in dealing with the immediate shock of the city’s transformation following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The early 90’s saw a resurgence of building and land occupations this time in the East. Throughout the city local residents often determined and designated derelict space as public.   For example, residents designated Mauerpark, formerly divided by the Berlin Wall and part of the heavily guarded Death Strip, as a public park.  These halting informal first steps helped establish a new structure and relationship in the use of official public space and released possibilities for publicly driven alternative interactions, functions and meanings. In the years following, the city’s inability to develop idle land and create economic opportunity encouraged an ad-hoc attitude, supported by cheap rents and squatting opportunities that encouraged an artistic community to flourish.

Rather than stifling and combating creativity, Berlin city officials and government agencies have largely accepted, and perhaps relish in public art as integral to the city’s identity. Not able to develop space in a traditional way, the city planning establishment has been forced to reconsider the advantages of a cultural economy and creative industries. Thus a unique avant-garde art scene and interpretive and creative use of public space has been fostered. 

Certainly 23 years ago when the Berlin Wall came down no one would have imagined the Berlin at present, or perhaps that Berlin would be recognized as a modern day global artistic capital. Berlin building facades are blanketed with graffiti to a New York 1970’s degree; private property is consistently besieged by street art, and vacant properties are declared public through impromptu dance parties. Yet, in 2005 Berlin was designated a UNESCO City of Design. The criteria were based on contemporary creation and environment, international profile and outlook, public focus, and cultural assets such as museums, festivals, and public art.

This proposal seeks to examine the continuing process of public space reinterpretation from communist divided Berlin to the present day, from this public driven perspective. How does Berlin’s instances of insurgency challenge the conventional understanding and making of public space— one so different from Hitler’s Germania? What can designers, planners and activists learn from these casual yet unconventional acts of resistance and reinterpretation? What do they reveal about the limitations and possibilities of public space as cultural capital in contemporary cities? How are these spaces and activities redefining and expanding the roles, functions, and meanings of the public and production of space? And lastly how does this fit into the larger global movement to democratize, re-envision, and re-occupy our public spaces.

(Study fellowship granted by the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York)

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Hildegard Knef - Heimweh nach Berlin (I'm so Homesick for Berlin), 1963 

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The site of the Berlin Wall was determined by the sectoral boundaries established by the occupying powers (Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the USA) at the end of World War II. These in turn corresponded to district boundaries that were established in 1920 when Berlin amalgamated outlying suburbs, towns and villages to create a single administration for an extensive metropolitan area, Greater Berlin (Grossstadt Berlin). Physically and functionally, these boundaries were artificial, except in the relatively few cases in which they corresponded to natural features, such as rivers, or to broad rail yards.

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With the construction of the Wall, the English, French and US sectors of Berlin, already separated politically and physically from West Germany, became even further isolated. This fragment of West Germany however remained significant from the standpoint of the city’s Cold War symbolism and, increasingly, its cultural vitality. For different reasons then, both East and West Berlin became showcases, East Berlin because it was the capital of the GDR, and West Berlin as an outpost of Western democracy and capitalism. 

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"The Wall of Hate", Newsreel 1961

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What the world was coming to know as 'the Berlin Wall' was described by Mutual Broadcasting Network's Berlin correspondent Norman Gelb as 'the most remarkable, the most presumptuous urban redevelopment scheme of all time, that snaked through the city like the backdrop to a nightmare.'

Berlin 1961, Michael Giltz

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The border between East and West Berlin was blocked in the middle of the night on August 12th, 1961. The original barrier was constructed with barbed or physically blocked by lines of armed GDR guards.   

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Within the first week a crudely constructed cinder block wall gradually sealed the border. Closely following the demarcated lines between East and West, the wall never over reached the delineated boundaries. 

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Replacement of the Stone Wall with a Concrete Wall (July 1, 1963)

Starting in 1963, portions of the original stone Wall were replaced with concrete. This photo shows work being done at Bernauer Straße. The two signs on the right are still within the Western sector – but just barely. One warns: "End of the French sector"; the other issues the following condemnation: “Roadblock caused by the Wall of Shame.” 

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Seen in the last two photos, from the year 1975 the third generation of Berlin Wall was replaced by the fourth generation. New concrete segments were used which were easy to build up and more resistant to breakthroughs and to environmental polutions. This kind of Berlin Wall was also called "Grenzmauer 75"

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The Berlin Wall at Heidelberger Straße in the District of Neukölln (1981)

In the 1970s, the unchanging status quo led many West Berliners to become accustomed to the Wall, and they simply began to co-exist with it, as can be seen in this photograph of the Wall at Heidelberger Straße in the West Berlin district of Neukölln, which bordered the East Berlin district of Treptow. Little garden plots and rabbit coops even appeared in certain spots in the “no-man’s-land” in front of the Wall. In a 1986 radio report on the 25th anniversary of the building of the Wall, journalist Helmut Kopetzy described the “normality of the abnormal” as holding sway in West Berlin. Photo by Klaus Lehnartz.

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The Border along Berlin’s Spree River (no date)

The border between the districts of Kreuzberg (West Berlin) and Friedrichshain (East Berlin) ran along the Spree River. Although East Berlin controlled the entire width of the Spree at this point, the Wall occupied the river's eastern bank. Patrol boats, underwater chain-link fences, and ship barricades were used to create a water border with West Berlin, since boaters, swimmers, and scuba divers tried time and again to reach the West via the Spree. Photos by Klaus Lehnartz.

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The Road to the Wall, 1962

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Journey Across Berlin (1961) 

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Die 3 Travellers "Eine Tüte Luft aus Berlin", 1958

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Post WWII East Berlin was first to rebuild, constructing the monumental and decorative "Workers' Palaces," along Stalinallee. Appalled by what many designers and politicians of the West considered a continuation of Nazi aesthetics, as a countermove West Berlin officials decided to rebuild the war ravaged area of Hansaviertel.

For the West the devastated area provided an opportunity to rebuild and draw attention to itself as the democratic bastion of freedom in the midst of the communist encirclement. Consequently, the development in Hansaviertel was designed as a manifesto of postwar urban planning and residential development intended to be in complete contrast to the Soviet Stalinallee.