- Berlin, capital city of Germany, is known globally as a leading metropolis of art and culture. Surely no other city anywhere in the world so clearly bears the marks of its recent history as Berlin. With 3.4 million inhabitants, Berlin is the largest city in Germany and since the ‘Wende’ (the fall of the GRD), the city has exchanged a third of its population, 14.0% of which is made up of immigrants.
- The river Spree flows through Berlin.
- The city is in a moderate climate zone with an average annual temperature of approx. 9 °C and average rainfall of 581 mm. The warmest month is July with on average 18.5°C and the coldest January, when the average remains below freezing at –0.6°C.
- In Berlin, 16.5% of the population is unemployed and in terms of economic power, Berlin comes off badly in a comparison with other European cities. In total, the city’s debt amounts to 61.0 billion euro.

All this information appears in the travel guide I read on my way to Berlin. It is summer. The tiny passenger aircraft is due to land at Tempelhof, Berlin’s inner city airport. An exciting moment for me; this is the last plane that will be permitted to land here, as the airport is due to close down, tomorrow.

What was once a fairground and a parade ground, in 1923 became an airfield, that the national socialists turned into the largest airport in the world. During the Berlin Blockade in 1948/49, the airport was an essential component of the air bridge, but a city centre airport is now something for yesteryear. The only remaining symbol of ‘free’ Berlin is now set to shut down, despite the last-minute efforts of a referendum to prevent the closure. Instead, what will be created is an open area in the city centre that at almost 4 km2 is larger than Central Park in New York. No one really knows what this will mean for the future. While some groups are delighted with the possible prospect of a new ecological paradise, others spread dire warnings that the entire area could fall into decay. There are also ideas for creating a new El Dorado for investors with theme parks and entertainment centres. As yet, the city’s fathers have not given any precise answer to the question how the area should be used, protected and developed. And yet that very fact could be the key to the area’s potential. The most interesting developments over the past few years have mainly taken place in sections of the city that had somehow broken free of the user chain, and were left deserted. The opening up of this site offers the opportunity to hand over a huge area of land for public use, with all the related excitement as to how the area will adjust. It could be the site for a unique experiment, just like shortly after the fall of the Wall, when everything in Berlin seemed still possible.

My travel guide goes on to say that although the Wall has disappeared, at its heart, the city is still divided. Now, some 19 years after its fall, the Wall is still a must-see destination on the agenda for interested tourists like myself. I intend to make a thorough investigation of any remains I can find.
Along the former border, the impressive recent history of Berlin’s urban development has clearly left its mark. There are sights of showy development interspersed with areas where the former Wall cordon still divides the adjacent districts, with a strip of fallow land. While some areas have grown together amicably, others still seem to be divided by an imaginary border. Parallel to these purely physical architectural facts, similar patterns still run through the minds of the people. Almost 19 years since the fall of the Wall, the bricks and mortar may have disappeared, but their legacy is not entirely gone. Still today impressive changes are taking place along the former wall corridor or in its vicinity. As a result the wall corridor is not only a useful means of describing the city’s past; it also reflects current processes still taking place.
My taxi takes only fifteen minutes to travel from Tempelhof to the Potsdamer Platz, the first item on my sightseeing list.

In 1991, two years after the fall of the Wall, an architectural competition was held for the design of the Potsdamer Platz. Here, East and West Berlin were to be brought together. Whereas in the 1920s, the square was the heart of the city and Europe’s busiest road junction, after World War Two, it first became a bombsite and later, after the erection of the Wall, a border point and as such a plot of unused land between the divided halves of the city. The square maintained this role for almost 30 years before being rudely returned to its position as the city centre, in 1989. All hopes and expectations focused on the idea that as the new, old capital city, Berlin should become the gateway to Eastern Europe. According to the plans of the city, what was needed here was once again a public urban square along the lines of any compact European city. DaimlerChrysler and Sony emerged as project developers but what they had in mind was rather an Americanistic collection of skyscrapers and massively-structured building complexes with privately-owned shopping malls. What followed was an animated discussion on the privatisation of public space, the driving out of population groups and the difference between public interest and the economic interests of investors. After a period in the 1990s as Europe’s largest construction site, the project was completed in 1999. Since not all elements of the initial proposal could be implemented, the gaps between the buildings are today filled by sham houses with metal scaffolding covered in plastic sheeting. The Potsdamer Platz is not an organically-grown structure but an artificially-created island; a sort of tourist city in a city. This was not the original intention. Following the reunification, after all, politicians, architects and investors assumed that Berlin would subsequently enjoy many years of economic and population growth. The forecasts suggested that within just a few years, Berlin would grow from 3.4 to 5 million inhabitants. The capital’s planning office produced great plans according to which this growth would be reflected in an impressive expansion in the city’s buildings. Numerous skyscrapers were set to arise on the Potsdamer Platz and Alexanderplatz. In the city centre, the wounds caused by war, traffic regulation, socialism and the Wall would be eradicated through so-called ‘critical reconstruction’. Wherever possible, the old structure of the city, as it had been before the war, should be recreated. Berlin developed an image of a finished, intact city due to be realised in just a few short years – a complete city ground plan in natural stone facade and ‘European architecture’. The ineffectual face of the city, the ever unfinished look was due to be eradicated from the city image. A reunified Germany should grow together as quickly as possible, a process visibly reflected in Berlin.
However, these plans for growth had to be cast aside as the expected major growth in both population and economy failed to materialise. The population stagnated at 3.4 million, and unemployment rose to more than 15%. The result was low occupancy levels and undeveloped urban sights, instead of active development. The great spatial planning expectations of the 1990 have not been fulfilled. The city is still defined by what remains unfinished. Spatially, Berlin continues to be an underwhelming city.
But let‘s go back to the Potsdamer Platz. Here, on this square, an entire city district arose in a single construction phase.
As a result, the area has a somewhat artificial character, underlined by what is by Berlin’s standards an unusual level of tidiness, cleanliness and ubiquitous private security. No place in Berlin seems as squeaky clean as the Potsdamer Platz - no fly posters and no graffiti (except in the government district).
Public space is the determining element in the look of any city. Berlin offers a huge bandwidth of public spaces that differ greatly from one another depending on location, design, use and users. Long gone is the time when only the traditional, central public spaces were of primary importance.
Increasingly today, public spaces are subject to processes such as privatisation, commercialisation, eventisation and occupation by advertising. Public space, to the extent that under these circumstances it can still be described as such, is increasingly often hallmarked by the demands and requirements of private economic interests. In the city centre, these developments are particularly clearly demonstrated on the Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz. Here, public use is being stage-managed on private property.
Public space, however, also reflects the changing financial freedom available to public authorities. In Berlin, this freedom of action is relatively restricted. The city’s debt mountain has risen to around 60 billion euro. Berlin is therefore dependent on investments and public-private partnerships.
This instrumentalisation of urban space in terms of marketing strategy is just a tiny example of the manifold processes of transformation to which urban space is being increasingly subjected as globalisation continues.

To gain a better impression of the city structure, I take a short walk to a panoramic viewpoint. Right in the heart of Berlin, close to Friedrichstrae, Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz, the WELT balloon floats at a height of 150 metres above the former wall corridor, as a tourist attraction-cum-advertising sign. Seen from the air, the huge construction site that is the Schloplatz clearly stands out.

The Schlossplatz square is at the heart of Berlin. At present it is still home to the monstrous ruins of the former Palace of the Republic. Between 1976 and 1990, the Palace of the Republic was the Culture Mecca and Parliament building of the GDR. Until 1950, this Square housed Berlin Castle, before it was dynamited to make way for socialist urban redesign.
Following the fall of the Wall, the Palace of the Republic was closed down and stripped of its asbestos cladding. During this period, heated debate emerged about the future use of the site. To promote the reconstruction of the Castle, in 1993/94, a private initiative installed the world’s largest ever full-scale model of a building; a flight of stairs leading to the Castle, with a representation of the facade printed on plastic film. The opponents of the Castle plan called for preservation of the Palace, and warned against the large-scale destruction of socialist buildings. The debate became increasingly politicised and took place on a two-dimensional level. An alternative to the reconstruction of the Castle or destruction of the Palace in 2004/2005 suggested a temporary use for the Palace. The ruin was ideal as a temporary art and cultural centre, and this proposal was remarkably well received. Even Rem Koolhaas at the time called for the semi-ruined building with its uncertain status to be preserved, since it offered such a wealth of opportunities. In 2002, the German Parliament, the Bundestag voted in favour of the reconstruction of the Castle. The Palace of the Republic was to be torn down by 2009 so a start could be made on (re)building the Castle in 2010. To date, the financing of the project has not been satisfactorily settled, and as yet there is no convincing concept for the use to which the building will be put.
Initial suggestions indicate an art exhibition centre, to calm the opponents of the Castle.
The current situation surrounding the Schloplatz and the Palace of the Republic involuntarily symbolises the difficulties of reunification.

From immediately below the balloon, our journey continues by Trabbant Safari across the Alexanderplatz towards the river Spree. Throughout the trip, the television tower (Fernsehturm) remains in view off to the east. The engine chatter of the Trabbis turns this city tour into a sort of Disneyland adventure
Close by the Spree, a demonstration brings my safari to an abrupt end. In front of the Köpi, an occupied house on the Köpenickerstrae, a demonstration is being held, accompanied by a massive police presence.

In the 1980s, West Berlin was the backdrop to an active squatter movement. Following the fall of the Wall, a new theatre of operations soon opened up. Encouraged by the helplessness of the East Berlin police force, in the short period of ‘legal freedom’ between the Fall of the Wall (1989) and the Reunification (1990), many of the empty houses in East Berlin were occupied by squatters. Although this led to some tension between the ‘autonomy’ movement in West Berlin and the ‘alternative’ protesters from East Berlin, the house at 137 Köpenicker Strae, that shortly before had been emptied of tenants and earmarked for demolition, was finally occupied in 1990. The occupation was not prevented by either the housing corporations or the police of East Berlin. The first eviction in East Berlin did not take place until after the Reunification. In response to the violent scenes on the streets, negotiations were started, the aim of which was to legalise the squatters’ rights. In the summer of 1991, the occupation of the Köpi was also ‘legalised’.
Following years of threatened eviction, a 30-year rental agreement was suddenly and surprisingly negotiated in March 2008.
Nonetheless, it is more the exception than the rule that such free areas are eventually retained; many housing projects and pockets of resistance have been forcibly evicted or are under acute threat.

This then was the background to the demonstration I came across, and subsequently joined. After all, my travel guide said that demonstrations in Berlin are usually one big party. En masse we marched along the East Side Gallery, said to house numerous clubs and beach bars. But those were destinations I had in fact marked for a visit this evening …

The urban space located on both sides of the Spree is known by investors as ‘Mediaspree’, in an attempt to attract communication and media businesses to the part of the city that used to divide east from West. Universal and MTV have already set up shop in the area. Slightly further afield, as well as office buildings, DIY stores and a cash & carry have settled in, but with their huge advertising hoardings they offer little architectural charm.
The Mediaspree project has repeatedly suffered considerable criticism, for example aimed at the proposed gentrification of the surrounding residential area and the privatisation of the public space, together with the planned ‘top-down urban redesign’ since this approach takes no account of the interests and concerns of the ‘old’ residents. The advent of short-time uses such as beach bars, clubs and artists’ workshops on the former unused sites are not included in these plans.
One current example of the commercialisation of the Spree area is the O2 World, a sort of sports and event hall built by the American investors Anschütz. An 1,800 m2 LED screen on the front wall is intended to inform visitors and passers-by in a ‘unique’ manner, and to provide entertainment. The event-based development did not even stop for the celebrated East Side Gallery. A 45 metre-wide section of the remains of the Berlin Wall, under protection as a national monument, was torn down to make space for wide-screen cinema projections and a landing jetty for tourist boats and water taxis.
The construction of the new O2 World is stark evidence of how public space is being marketed as an advertising opportunity, and financed via new forms of partnership.
On the other hand, the Spree area is also the backdrop to processes of acquisition by civil society that are contributing to greater use of public space. The temporary use of the derelict areas so profusely available in Berlin are typical examples. On the banks of the Spree, between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, there is an impressive example of how sections of the city that have somehow dropped out of the economic value chain are being re-accessed by young people and put into public use. As a consequence, alongside the terms loss and functional dereliction, reference is also regularly made to a renaissance in the use of public space. It is therefore difficult, seen across the city as a whole, to identify any single trend that could be described as decisive, in this field. Instead a whole range of developments are taking place at different places, at differing levels of intensity.

In this way, cultural projects are becoming the driving force behind sustainable transformation, are changing the city space, are opening up new versions of urban development and are creating new strategies for use of space. The principle of temporary utilisation calls for flexibility; once an investor is found, eviction orders are issued for premises, and a new location has to be found. This calls for economic skills; negotiations must be undertaken, and contracts entered into.
Many of these interventions are not hard, not top-down, but instead are soft, bottom-up and gentle. They embed themselves in the structure as it is available, nestle themselves into a comfortable niche and camouflage themselves efficiently. The unwritten code of these strategies for taking over and occupying space includes adapting to the current situation and issuing a tactical response.
Unlike the squatters from the 1970s and 80s who attempted to enforce their interests in housing space through the threat of potential violence, these soft players with their adroit approach avoid possible conflicts by bringing together the various convergent interests. Rather a user who pays no rent than no user at all. And of course, as soon as a paying tenant is found, the temporary user is out on his ear. But he accedes without any rancour; after all we are free, flexible and in a state of transition. The culture producers have no interest in the acquisition of tenants rights or the characteristics of employee rights; as a consequence, voluntarily or perhaps even subconsciously, these players are becoming the avant-garde of neoliberalism.
After the fall of the Wall, there was a sense of euphoria about the opportunities for development in Berlin. On the other hand, there was also considerable euphoria amongst many young people from the alternative circuit. The collapse of the State bodies of the GDR and the uncertainty about the future placed Berlin in a state of anarchy. Everything appeared to be possible, as long as you made the effort. The art and culture scene took possession of many unoccupied locations. Clubs were opened in empty houses and if anyone happened to object, they simply relocated and opened a week later in another house. Anyone who wishes to understand Berlin must recognise the importance of these processes. Although the Wall fell 19 years ago, the unused sites and the strategies for acquisition still remain today. As a consequence, over the past few years, a wide range of places have been reopened, once again brought to the minds of the residents, and given a new lease of life.

Encumbered by these impressions, surrounded by other tourists, I now return to the West via the Oberbaum bridge and soon find myself by the Schlesischer Tor gate, once again back in infamous Kreuzberg. Unfortunately, the magnificent river panorama is disrupted by huge advertising hoardings and my eye is also drawn to the ever present graffiti, occupying practically every wall. I quickly take a few photographs for my friends at home.

The Schlesische Tor is in Kreuzberg, close by the Spree and the former Wall, but in Berlin’s western half. During the period of division, the area was on the periphery of the city, and surrounded on three sides by the Berlin Wall. Properties fell into an ever deeper state of disrepair so rents here were particularly low. The “Bonjour Tristesse“ graffiti from the 1980s painted on the gable of a new building was symbolic for the entire area.
After the fall of the Wall, the area was geographically thrown back into a more central location. Over the years it has slowly become a more chic neighbourhood attracting designer stores, cafes and clubs.
Despite this process of upgrading, the area is still home to many poor households. In the weekend, a complete cross-section of society meets at the neighbouring park in Görlitz: young mothers, Turkish barbecues, drug dealers, a children’s zoo, students reading, electro parties and children playing football.
Today, the innumerable colourful works of former street-art exhibitions are now used to adorn the public space.

The walls are plastered with street-art combined with guerrilla marketing. The term guerrilla - better known from civil wars and wars of liberation – is used in the advertising industry to describe a form of concealed, secret marketing operation, designed to undermine the rules of the opposition. Marketing in a struggle against marketing. A brand space is a space within which symbolic power struggles are fought; after all, in marketing, everything has a meaning, the interpretation of which must be occupied and defended.
By the Schlesischer Tor itself, in the form of pseudo street-art, huge graffiti works and paste-ups from Ogo cover the walls of houses. Ogo is a communication company aiming to directly supply the young target group with mobile chat devices. In consultation with the home owners, the logo has been applied to the walls, in graffiti style. Street artists, who view this form of advertising as selling out their culture, have recently started arming themselves with white paint, to paint over these advertising expressions.
Street artists and graffiti artists therefore use urban branding as a spatial tactic. Graffiti is an integral part of the street image of Berlin. Everything is lived in, pasted over and used. Walls are painted and sprayed on, but the same goes for electricity distribution housings, lampposts, road signs, telephone boxes, waste bins and traffic lights and even pavements and streets are not spared. Because many home owners are short of cash, the graffiti, posters and stickers are left in place far longer in Berlin than in many other cities.

By underground we travel to the Kottbusser Tor. The underground line U1 is populated by a colourful company of street newspaper sellers and musicians and undercover ticket collectors. My travel guide warns: the Kottbusser Tor is a dangerous place, and the underground station is a meeting place for junkies and drug dealers. I quickly make my way outside into the realm of security, police offers and a wide selection of unusual individuals. The area is supposed to now be populated by interesting bars and clubs. I wait with baited breath.

The Kottbusser Tor is considered a fascinating centre of social development in the heart of Berlin. Above all because of its peripheral location in West Berlin, and intensive clean-up actions, the area became home to people from the outer edges of society. Even today, the area has the lowest average income, the highest number of benefit receivers and the highest unemployment rate in Berlin. The public space around the square is mainly populated by drug addicts, the poverty-struck and immigrants. The square is surrounded by social housing in the style of huge housing estates. Despite the apparent minimal quality of the urban architecture, the square is occupied all year round.
Following the destruction of the area during World War Two, the first round of urban renewal took place here in the 1960s. The result was total demolition, thus removing all existing structures. As well as two urban motorways, plans were made for building new blocks of high-rise flats in a ribbon-like pattern.
This led to massive resistance amongst the population. Homes were occupied and defended in street battles with the police. At the start of the 1980s, this in turn led to a new clean-up policy known as ‘cautious urban renewal’, the objective of which was to preserve and maintain as far as possible any old buildings that still remained. For almost 40 years, the area around the Kottbusser Tor was an area of redevelopment and the bitterly contested theatre of urban development policy in Berlin. In ‘Kotti’ everything that has ever been labelled urban renewal has at some time been tried out, a fact clearly reflected in the readily visible different phases and philosophies of urban redevelopment.
Over the past few years, the Kottbusser Tor has also been considered the hotspot of Berlin’s nightlife. Bars, clubs and galleries have opened in the various storeys of 1970 residential housing. Ghetto-chic is in, and attractive to Berlin’s young creatives.

Having eaten the obligatory kebab, and taken a turn around what is now ‘Little Istanbul’, I am forced to flee for fear of two fighting junkies who set about each other with broken-necked bottles.
It is time for me to move on, and I climb aboard an aboveground section of the underground, and head for the airport.
During takeoff from Berlin-Schönefeld airport, in my Ryanair jet, I read in my in-flight magazine Berlin’s new advertising campaign: “Berlin is daily grind and wild party, from red-light district to cultural centre. Sometimes rough but always honest and heartfelt. And Berlin is always on the move.” That then is how the city advertises itself. And that appeals to me.

Berlin symbolises change and experimentation. And although Berlin is not clean and also not rich, Berlin is exciting. This exciting city Berlin lives by its myths. Myths of the past and myths of the present. This mythological arsenal of images is nourished by innumerable historical fault lines that cross the city spatially and historically: East Berlin before the fall of the Wall as an outpost of freedom; Berlin during the fall as the city of liberation; Berlin after the fall as a city of cultural dynamism and numerous and exciting subcultures. The fact that these subcultures exist in Berlin – apart from the image-creating myths – has two solid economic reasons. Fallow land, unused patches of empty space created by urban poverty, offers spacious potential for economic activity for creative and artistic people and for players from other sectors. A vacuum opens up opportunities, allowing lifestyles and experiments to take place that would not be possible in other, more economically prosperous cities. After all, these patches of unused land between investment opportunities are an invitation and a call for temporary intervention, and as long as no economically viable use is found, creators of culture are welcome. In this way, the urban space becomes a testing ground for cultural experiments. Or put another way: economic restriction makes space for cultural freedom. The necessary precondition for the subcultural variety of Berlin is the failure of the economic dreams, the absence of flourishing landscape and the inability of Germany’s economy to compete on a global scale. Berlin is made attractive by precisely those elements that local urban development politicians view as a serious problem: lack of growth, high unemployment and minimal development.
Berlin is a poor city and precisely that poverty makes it attractive. Rents are low, food is affordable and this is not where big money is made; instead, small happiness is cultivated. Because it is a poor city, life here is more moderately priced and less complicated than in the majority of the Western world’s other major cities. Berlin is the opposite of an economically dynamic and prospering city.

Friedrich von Borries, Matthias Böttger, Moritz Ahlert and Benjamin Kasten (raumtaktik – spatial tactics), June 2008




Friedrich von Borries, Matthias Böttger, Moritz Ahlert and Benjamin Kasten (raumtaktik – spatial tactics), June 2008