Abstract
The availability of urban voids that have characterized Berlin’s urban landscape since the Second World War until the early 2000s has emerged as a tradition of spontaneous appropriation of space. This shift in discourse, promoted by the city senate and the economic growth, has been the focus of Berlin’s more recent urban development. It created completely different conditions, where competition for available land has become more and more acute. The new pressure on the land has made it increasingly difficult for urban entrepreneurs, who, in order to maintain projects started in the 1990s and 2000s or to begin new ones, have had to elaborate strategies and reconfigure themselves according to the competitive positioning and maximization of value imposed by neoliberalism logics. Our observation of the three case studies of Holzmarkt, RAW Gelände and Haus der Statistik analyses the transformations and strategies that urban pioneers had to develop in order to survive with their projects in relatively central areas of the city of Berlin.
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Notes
- 1.
Between 1990 and 2000 Berlin’s debt grew from 9.5 billion euros to 42.4 billion euros, i.e. an increase of about 4.5 times. For a comparison: in the same time the federal government's debt increased 2.5 times. Source: Senatsverwaltung für Finanzen https://www.berlin.de/sen/finanzen/haushalt/haushaltsueberwachung/schuldentilgung/artikel.475316.php. Accessed 04 May 2021.
- 2.
Like relocating national government facilities to the new capital Berlin.
- 3.
A discourse stimulated and recounted, among others, by the EU-funded research project “Urban Catalysts. Strategies for temporary uses—Potential for development of urban residual areas in European metropolises” (2000–2003), whose results are summarized in: Oswalt P., Overmeyer K., Misselwitz P. (eds.) (2004).
- 4.
Official ad campaign 1996. In 1993/94 “Partner für Berlin - Gesellschaft für Hauptstadt - Marketing mbH” was founded on behalf of the Berlin city administration. With the task of building up a positive image for the city, it positioned Berlin as a “city of culture, as the capital and seat of government and as a city with metropolitan flair and liveliness”.
- 5.
Krex, K. (Press & Public Relations at Holzmarkt). Interview. Conducted by Lorenza Manfredi and Natalia Kvitkova, 16 July 2020.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
The information outlining the course of events was recounted according to one of the initial actors on the site. Schütt K. (alias Mikado) Interview. Conducted by Lorenza Manfredi, 16 September 2020. Translation from german by the authors.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
Krex, K. (Press & Public Relations at Holzmarkt). Interview. Conducted by Manfredi L. and Kvitkova N., 16 July 2020.
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Kvitkova, N., Manfredi, L. (2021). Reconfiguring the Neoliberal City: Three Stories of Urban Pioneers in Berlin. In: Vassallo, I., Cerruti But, M., Setti, G., Kercuku, A. (eds) Spatial Tensions in Urban Design. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84083-9_12
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