In Berlin, activists and politicians come together to save an abandoned building
By Dana dela Cruz
BERLIN — At the heart of the city, Berlin’s Alexanderplatz hums with life. Commuters emerge en masse from the sprawling subway station. Shoppers stroll through a giant concrete plaza, swinging bags from nearby stores. Tourists stop to snap pictures of the iconic communist-era Television Tower.
One block over, an abandoned building looms ghostlike over Karl-Marx-Allee: the Haus der Statistik, originally an East German government statistics office. Its walls are gray and graffiti’d, its windows smashed in. Here, the bustle of Alexanderplatz grinds to a halt.
Now, Berliners hope to transform the abandoned complex into a hub of urban life. Grassroots activists and city planners are working closely together to fill the Haus der Statistik with affordable housing units, art spaces, educational programs, social services and more.
Like many cities, Berlin is grappling with rapid change. Gentrification and immigration are altering the landscape of the city, and perhaps its very soul. Rents rose by 70 percent between 2004 and 2016 thanks largely to hi-tech start-ups and real estate developers. Last year over 31,000 new arrivals moved into the city, and in 2016 that number was as high as 60,000.
But here, at this dilapidated relic of the past, Berliners hope to build the city’s future.
“Berlin is a city where people with low income and with recent migration backgrounds had, for decades, the option to live in the heart of the city,” said city planner Manfred Kühne. “And now, with the start-up boom, we are more and more drifting towards urban development ruled by market activities. And maybe we have the illusion — at least we have the ambition — to balance that.”
The project’s ‘bottom-up’ approach — where ideas come from regular citizens, not just bureaucrats — is becoming increasingly popular in Berlin, and the Haus der Statistik is the largest project of its kind.
True to this bottom-up nature, the story of the new Haus der Statistik began with a grassroots protest.
Shaken by increasing evictions and studio closures, a group of artists staged a demonstration at the Haus der Statistik in September 2015. They called themselves the Alliance of Endangered Studio Spaces (Allianz bedrohter Berliner Atelierhäuser or AbBA).
Just three years prior, in the same borough of Mitte, another group of artists had lost their own fight against new development. The iconic Tacheles compound, an abandoned building which once housed about 100 artists and squatters, was vacated and sold in 2012 despite public protest.
It was an omen for changes to come, especially for artists. Many had flocked to Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall, taking up cheap studios or occupying abandoned East German buildings. Now, three out of five visual artists in the city are looking for a studio, according to a tally done by the Professional Association of Berlin Visual Artists.
The Haus der Statistik’s central location made it an ideal spot to stage a protest on gentrification. The building, then owned by the federal government, was set to be demolished and replaced with private developments, but AbBA had another idea. They unfurled a banner on the façade, which read: “A center for art, culture, and social projects will be created here.”
“We thought, ‘What would be a smart action that doesn’t make us look like victims?’” said musician Boris Jöns, a member of AbBA. “We have ideas. We see ourselves as important actors in the urban context.”
Tasked with hanging the banner, Jöns stood seven stories high on the platform of an aerial lift. Just months prior, he was evicted from his studio, an abandoned East German post office he’d been living in since 2003.
The eviction inspired Jöns to join AbBA and participate in the banner-drop — which, he joked, was only “half-legal.” Still, he was more afraid of falling than arrest: it was a windy day, and the lift swayed.
“It was so much fun,” Jöns recalled with a laugh. “There’d be these buttons, and we’d go, ‘What does that button do?’ It was like a slapstick. It was hilarious.”
The banner was designed to resemble an official construction sign from the city. Playing along, speakers pretended to thank the city government for the fictional project. About 100 people attended, and the event was televised. Jöns called it a “very good” stunt.
“And then, to our big surprise, the thing started to gain traction,” Jöns said.
Several groups joined forces with AbBA to form the collective ZUsammenKUNFT — meaning both together and future in German. For months, they worked with residents to devise a plan to save and renovate the building. Plans featured a refugee center, a town hall for the borough of Mitte, and affordable studio spaces, among other things.
In 2016, the activists presented their plan to the Berlin Senate, the local city-state government. A left-leaning ‘red-red-green’ coalition had just been elected, paving the way for the plan’s approval. Finally, in 2017, the city of Berlin gained ownership of the Haus der Statistik.
“This whole project was started via public participation,” said Felix Marlowe, a member of ZUsammenKUNFT. “It’s driven by actors who speak up to the city institutions and to the public discourse on urbanism.”
Grassroots organizing and citizen participation are the norm for Berliners. In German discourse, it’s called Selbstermächtigung — self-empowerment — and it grew especially strong after World War II during a long period of economic stagnation.
“The construction of the Wall ruined West Berlin’s industries, and the fall of the Wall brought the ruin of East Berlin’s industries,” said city planner Manfred Kühne. “But in that period, over the last 40 years in Berlin, an extremely powerful civil society developed.”
As a result, many ‘top-down’ planning projects have been struck down by the public. In 2014, Berliners voted against the city’s plan to renovate Tempelhof Airport, a vast abandoned airfield that was once the site of the post-war Allied airlift to a besieged West Berlin. The plan included a new public library, affordable housing units, and a public park — but Berliners were skeptical of the developers involved.
“In Berlin, people don’t trust in politicians, in experts, in administrations,” Kühne said.
But the Haus der Statistik could change that. Its planning team consists of the Berlin Senate, the borough of Mitte, two city-owned development companies, and the activists of ZUsammenKUNFT. They’ve dubbed themselves the “Koop5,” short for the Cooperation Five. A collaboration of this scale is unprecedented in Berlin.
And it’s not without its difficulties. The city-owned companies prefer traditional, bureaucratic methods, while the activists seek out non-traditional voices and perspectives. Administrators like Kühne are caught in the middle, tied to governmental procedures but also mindful of Berlin’s powerful civil society.
“We consider it an experiment,” Kühne said. “We have the support from the decision-makers to make mistakes, to not reach our results on the first approach. Normally you don’t have that in public administration.”
If all goes according to plan, construction will start in 2022 and finish in 2028.
“Though, there’s a lot of hope involved there,” Marlowe, the ZUsammenKUNFT member, said with a laugh.
Until then, groups and individuals can apply to use the pockets of the building that are deemed safe. This past May, the Performing Arts Festival (PAF) used the space as a meeting point. For an organization rooted in independent, local art, using the Haus der Statistik was a meaningful choice.
“What’s interesting about the PAF and the Haus der Statistik is that these things happen through people who say, ‘We want this. This is ours,’” said Thomas Eder, PAF’s International Relations and Urban Development Director. “And they got together, and now they have a real building: something that is tangible, something that cannot be pushed away. It’s proof of social change being possible from beneath.”
In June, the building’s first floor was opened for a public exhibit about the project. Miniature Styrofoam models and computer renderings promised a revitalized Haus der Statistik. Boards decorated like comic books told the story of the building, emphasizing citizen participation.
“Normally you just show the plans and models,” said Marlowe, who helped curate the exhibit. “But we decided to show the discourse and discussion.”
The story of the Haus der Statistik is one part of a larger discussion about the future of planning in Berlin. Last summer, Berlin hosted Make City, a festival exploring new ways to design urban areas. There, speakers stressed the importance of cooperation between the government and its citizens.
In Kreuzberg — a migrant-heavy, quickly-gentrifying eastern neighborhood — grassroots activists are leading another cooperative effort to turn a former barrack into a neighborhood hub like the Haus der Statistik. They too envision affordable spaces for housing, local business, and cultural and social institutions.
This ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’ development is not limited to large, mixed-use developments but also residence blocks. In response to the city’s growing housing crisis, Baugruppen or building groups have sprung up, in which individual or family investors band together to buy a property and build what they want on it, according to their own needs and tastes.
Berlin architect Matthias Reese says the trend is a welcome antidote to Berlin’s real estate market having been taken over by “international players” who “lack of connection to the city.” Many single parents choose the option of sharing communal kitchens with others instead of paying extremely high rent. And seniors can help each other out in retirement.
“People [are] changing the idea of ownership,” Reese said.
He views it not as a return to socialist values, but as one of the few strategies left for families in a city of rapidly growing population.
This cooperative style of urban planning — one which includes citizens’ voices from the beginning — could be replicated in other cities if Berlin’s ventures prove successful. After all, Berliners often draw parallels to gentrified U.S. cities like San Francisco and New York, known for their ‘unlivable’ housing markets.
“The Haus der Statistik is undoubtedly a case where citizen protest on the one hand and a certain institutional openness on the other have finally led to an acceptable compromise,” wrote Ares Kalandides, professor of place management at Manchester Metropolitan University. “And this is an important lesson for all of us involved in urban development.”
No one knows for sure if the project will succeed — it is, after all, an experiment. But Berlin is willing to try.
With reporting by Margarita Delcheva.
Dana Ysabel Dela Cruz is a senior at UC Santa Barbara majoring in Asian American Studies and pursuing the Professional Journalism Certificate.
