Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung
dérive
dérive
WARSAW Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
Juli — Sept 2018
ISSN 1608-8131 8 euro
dérive
WARSAW — Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
(Re-)privatization, urban movements, housing, eviction, transport axis, public space, destruction, chaos/order, neoliberalism, modernization, gentrification, reconstruction, property restitution
No 72
N o 72
Łukasz Drozda — Wild reprivatization, S. 12
dérive – Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung
»The phenomenon of wild reprivatization seems to pose one of the most serious challenges to urban policy in Poland.«
Juli — Sept 2018
Editorial This special issue on Warsaw is the 72nd edition of dérive and the first with an editorial in English for 18 years (the German version is available on our website, derive.at). In addition to the editorial, all contributions to the focal point are in English. However, this does not mean that dérive will be available only in English in the future. The choice of language is due to the issue being produced in cooperation with the organizers of this year’s INURA conference in Warsaw, where the magazine will also be the conference reader. INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action) is a network of international urban researchers and activists of which dérive has been a member for many years. Every year a conference takes place in a different city and is conceptualized and organized by the local INURA members. I would like to thank Kacper Pobłocki in particular for the great cooperation on the editorial work for this Warsaw issue. Kacper is not only responsible for the editorial concept, but was also – despite the time-consuming preparation for the conference – involved in the production of the issue from the initial idea to printing. Warsaw is a city that has experienced radical breaks in its development over the last century, which are still relevant and visible in many different ways today: the Nazi occupation, the crushing of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the subsequent systematic and almost complete destruction of the city can hardly be surpassed in terms of cruel contempt for humanity. Several articles in the focal point refer to these events and their consequences, most directly a text by Bolesław Bierut from 1955, which Irena Maryniak has translated – along with others – from Polish to English for this edition of dérive. The second major break in Warsaw’s recent urban history saw the shift from a state-socialist to capitalist system. Thereafter, the significance of property grew enormously and profit-oriented thinking made a decisive breakthrough, having a fatal effect on today’s housing market. This makes the ownership of many houses and properties a hotly contested topic, especially in connection with the (re-)privatization of property originally stolen by the Nazis. Of course, most of the buildings affected were destroyed at the end of World War II and, in many cases, the property claims pursued today have nothing to do with the original owners or their descendants. There are cases, for example, where the companies that had real estate confiscated by the National Socialists are revived simply in order to construct a claim for compensation. In the recent past, this topic has caused a stir in the media in Warsaw. Łukasz Drozda analyses the associated debate as played out in current publications. In an interview, activists of the Warsaw Tenants Association (WSL) report on the everyday and concrete effects of conflicts concerning the Warsaw housing market, which have repeatedly turned violent.
In addition to the 1955 text by Bolesław Bierut, we have two further manifesto-like texts from other periods. The architects and urban planners Jan Chmielewski and Szymon Syrkus published Warsaw as a Functional City in 1934. Meanwhile, in 2006, Bohdan Jałowiecki considered whether Warsaw is in danger of becoming a Third World city. Taken together, the three texts provide a range of reflections about the fate of Warsaw and its development through time, thus documenting various historical perspectives. Three interviews with urban activists complement these texts. In addition to the conversation with the WSL housing activists, dérive spoke to representatives of the Open Jazdów Initiative, an organization that is determined to save a very central park-like site, and the activities that have developed there, from valorisation. The third interview is about the highly active urban grassroots movement that has established itself in Polish cities. Chaos is a term widely used in discussions about the status of Warsaw. Joanna Kusiak focuses in her article on what the word chaos describes, how it is used, by whom and what it is meant to obfuscate. She traces an arc from Hegel to Harvey, from everyday experiences in Warsaw to the unbuilt Museum of Modern Art, and from a heterogeneous cityscape to neoliberal shock therapy. Kacper Pobłocki has not only written an introduction to the focal point. In his contribution Salon: Domestication of Warsaw’s Public Space, Pobłocki writes about the relationship of the capital to the rest of the country, about the dominant role of the gentry in urban (class) society and how they have inscribed themselves on Warsaw’s buildings (amounting to a literal gentryfication) and, to conclude, about the function and use of public and private space between salon and socialization. Finally, a look at the 9th urbanize! festival which will be hosted in two cities for the second time, combining theory, best practice and hands on workshops. urbanize! takes place in Berlin from 5 to 14 October and is organized collectively by a broad alliance of Berlin’s urban movements and housing initiatives in cooperation with dérive. In Vienna urbanize! will take place from 24 to 28 October at Nordbahnhalle, taking a close look at the scale of the neighborhood and its potential for citizens empowerment. Program details will be available from August on www.urbanize.at. You are welcome to join! Save the date(s)! Our crowdlending campaign is still running for the Viennese Habitat/Mietshäusersyndikat house project Bikes and Rails, where dérive is also involved. We recently surpassed the 200,000 euro mark, which is a great success. But don’t worry, we need another 1.3 million euro. So you still have the opportunity to participate. Information is available at bikesandrails.org. Christoph Laimer
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Inhalt / Content 01 Editorial CHRISTOPH LAIMER Schwerpunkt / Focal Point 04—05 WARSAW – A Taciturn City KACPER POBŁOCKI 06—10 WILD reprivatization Property restitution in post-communist Warsaw ŁUKASZ DROZDA 11—13 It All Started with RAGE and ANGER SYRENA AND CAFÉ KRYZYS, LISA PUCHNER 14—19 SALON – Domestication of Warsaw’s Public Space KACPER POBŁOCKI 20—24 Creating spaces for free thought and FREE activities All about a once long-forgotten site in central Warsaw ANDRZEJ GÓRZ, WOJTEK MATEJKO, LISA PUCHNER 25—32 The Cunning of CHAOS and Its ORDERS A Taxonomy of Urban Chaos in Post-Socialist Warsaw and Beyond JOANNA KUSIAK Kunstinsert / Artistic Insert 33—37 Joanna Rajkowska Trees and Stumps
38—39 Urban grassroots movements in POLAND TYMON RADWAŃSKI, CHRISTOPH LAIMER 40—45 Manifesto 1 (1934): Warsaw as a FUNCTIONAL CITY JAN CHMIELEWSKI, SZYMON SYRKUS 46—48 MANIFESTO 2 (1955): CARE for the HUMAN person BOLESŁAW BIERUT 49—54 Manifesto 3 (2006): Is WARSAW becoming a city of the THIRD World? BOHDAN JAŁOWIECKI Besprechungen / Reviews 55—60 Otto Wagner – zweimal zum Gedenken S.55 Architektur in der Grauzone S.57 Die Rückeroberung der Stadt – aber wo ist der politische Kampf? S. 58 Alle, die hier sind, sind von hier S. 59 68 IMPRESSUM / IMPRINT
– dérive – Radio für Stadtforschung Jeden 1. Dienstag im Monat von 17.30 bis 18 Uhr in Wien auf ORANGE 94.0 oder als Webstream http://o94.at/live. Sendungsarchiv: http://cba.fro.at/series/1235
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K ACPER POBŁOCKI
WARSAW —
A Taciturn City
Self-identity, historical trauma, Warsaw Uprising, geographical location, INURA conference, flâneur, urban research
Alej Jerozolimskich (Jerusalem Street) Photo — Jan Gebert
There are two types of cities. Some are talkative – they churn out one story after another. Denizens in New York City, Paris, Beirut or Tokyo, when asked about the city they live in, will openly and gladly tell you what makes their city special. Such narratives usually add up to a coherent picture of local urban identity. Warsaw belongs to the other group – that of taciturn cities. It does not have a predefined identity, and when asked about their city, Warsavians’ knee-jerk reaction is either to ask the outsider for their view or to change the subject. When it does speak up, Warsaw communicates through its walls. Coming from western Poland, when I first moved to Warsaw, I was shocked by the number of plaques commemorating national figures or acts of violence committed during World War II. The city’s veneer is coated with records of historical trauma. In this sense Warsaw is the very capital of what Timothy
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Snyder dubbed »bloodlands« – a vast territory »between Hitler and Stalin« that saw the murder of some 14 million people between 1933 and 1945. Reduced to ashes in 1944, Warsaw is one of the rare cases of a city that really started anew. But everybody remembers 1 August, when year after year in what is perhaps the most Varsovian of acts, the whole city stops for a minute to commemorate the 200,000 victims of the Warsaw Uprising. And then there is the urban fabric, which makes Warsaw so unusual that it does not resemble a proper city. It has no centre, or is in fact multicentric, with each small-scale centre being slightly off-centre. Back in the early 2000s, Warsaw was colloquially referred to as a concrete camping site. Krakow or Wrocław – centres with a more continuous urban history and with more charm –were considered proper cities. No wonder
dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
one of the most famous music bands from Warsaw is the Warsaw Village Band. Yet, there is an order behind what seems like a random patchwork. In her essay reprinted in this issue of dérive, Joanna Kusiak shows how Warsaw’s urban fabric – elusive and nonintuitive at first glance – represents a palimpsest of many attempts to break with history. In this sense, Warsaw is a city that continuously starts anew. Warsaw is a city that continuously starts anew While the sense of looming history is indisputable and visible in the omnipresent fingerprints of the past, the city’s chaotic geography has become the fulcrum of possibility and change. As a consequence, one of the most quintessentially Warsavian debates has been on Warsaw’s actual geographical location. The three essays we reprint here as Retroactive Manifestos attest to the eerie sense of ambiguity as to where Warsaw actually is. In their Warszawa Funkcjonalna research manifesto from 1934, Szymon Syrkus and Jan Chmielewski start their analysis from a bird’s-eye perspective, looking at the larger international flows and networks in which Warsaw is enmeshed. Their text comprises a number of consecutive analytical steps, which are also visually represented in the corresponding maps. We reprint only the first eight of those steps, but the final outcome – the Warszawa Funkcjonalna diagram – is the cartographic theory of what constitutes, to borrow David Harvey’s phrase, the »structured urban coherence« of Warsaw. Just ten years after Warszawa Funkcjonalna was published, Warsaw was destroyed and a new city erected in its place. Yet a comparison of a map of contemporary Warsaw with the Warszawa Funkcjonalna diagram shows that the city actually did grow according to the logic Syrkus and Chmielewski had predicted. The most traumatic of events – the Warsaw Uprising and the Nazis’ destruction of the city – did little in the way of altering Warsaw’s innate trajectory. The other two manifestos – excerpts from the 1951 book entitled The Six-year Plan for Warsaw’s Reconstruction and an essay by Bohdan Jałowiecki – also pose the geographical question. Jałowiecki, in a gesture that generated a heated debate back in 2006, argues that Warsaw is not becoming a dead ringer for a Western city but instead belongs to the family of cities from the Global South. These texts are separated by long decades and each is dedicated to a very different Warsaw. But if there is anything they have in common, then it is the sense of Warsaw being somehow out of step in terms of its geography, its actual location in the world at large. This geographical ambiguity is a source of discontents for inhabitants (and perhaps the reason why Warsaw does not have a clear-cut identity) but represents a great opportunity for urban researchers. This is why the current issue of dérive coincides with the 28th annual conference of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA). The conference will be a week-long encounter between international and local urban scholars and activists, who will – together – try to think about Warsaw’ structured coherence and answer the question of what makes it unique as a city. Because of Warsaw’s reluctance to embrace an explicit urban self-identity, it has often been spoken about as a site
where other, non-urban, processes unfold – such as a putative transition from state socialism to market capitalism. But what does labelling Warsaw a post-socialist city actually mean? Instead of defining Warsaw according to what it no longer is (a socialist city) or what, in theory, it is supposed to become (a poster child for market capitalism), we will delve into places and processes that define Warsaw’s contemporary mien. To this end, we will employ INURA’s unique conference format – talking about cities in the actual urban space and not inspecting Powerpoint slides in air-conditioned rooms. We will therefore study Warsaw from the bottom up and treat it as a theoretical clean slate. Thus, we will forget about jumbo theories and turn to elements of everyday life in Warsaw: housing, transit, labour, consumption, migration, its natures and its non-human denizens. It may turn out that, for example, the annus mirabilis of 1989 does not constitute a watershed in Warsaw’s trajectory after all. Instead, longer continuities may be at work, and more recent forces may have shaken the city to its core. On the one hand, Warszawa Funkcjonalna turned out to have been uncannily precise in defining the pattern of Warsaw’s spatial expansion, despite the dramatic intrusions that the city experienced. Conversely, Poland’s 2004 accession to the European Union ushered in flows of capital that engendered entirely new spaces as well as redefining some extant ones, substantially unsettling the city and altering its position in various networks (global, national). It may be the case that Warsaw is positioned in an entirely different place. We hope our peripatetic intellectual experiment and the encounter between local and international researchers will reinvigorate urban theory. Walking and thinking have always b een intertwined. Beginning with ancient philosophers, through Rousseau and Kierkegaard and from modernist flâneurs to urban ethnographers, many theories have originated from a surprise peripatetic discovery or a chance encounter. Recently, there has been plenty of jumbo-sized theorising about the urbanization of our planet, and we have a plethora of microstudies either describing certain places or dissecting specific urban issues. With a few exceptions (such as Filip de Boeck’s work on Kinshasa and Hidenobu Jinnai’s work on Tokyo), we are in dire need of research that shows how various fragments are, as de Boeck put it, sutured together. When Jinnai set off to walk the streets of Tokyo in the 1980s, he probably did not expect his peregrinations to allow him to discover a planning paradigm that had never been formally expressed but in fact explains precisely how his city came about and how it works. The point of departure for Jinnai’s discovery was walking. By the same token, a novel theory that stitches contemporary Warsaw together into a coherent whole may be just around the corner. We need only make our way there.
Kacper Pobłocki is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at the Warsaw University. He writes about class, space and uneven development. He used to be an urban activist and led the Alliance of Urban Movements that ran in 2014 in municipal elections in eleven Polish cities. In 2017 his book Kapitalizm historia krotkiego trwania (Spatial origins of capitalism the English edition forthcoming) came out.
Kacper Poblocki — WARSAW. A Taciturn City
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ŁUK ASZ DROZDA
WILD reprivatization Property restitution in post-communist Warsaw
Reprivatization, corruption, housing market, reconstruction, property restitution, claim dealers, tenant movement
Tenants activist Jolanta Brzeska; »She died fighting for the right to live. The fight continues.« Photo — Mateusz Opasiński
The phenomenon of wild reprivatization seems to pose one of the most serious challenges to urban policy in Poland. It affects thousands of properties and has become the subject of several books published in Poland since 2016. The majority of these publications focus on Warsaw.
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
ACTIVISTS FROM SYRENA AND CAFÉ KRYZYS INTERVIEWED BY LISA PUCHNER
It ALL Started with RAGE and Housing, tenancy law, protest, recommunalization, eviction, privatization, tenants association, squat, self-organization
ANGER
Protest in front of the house of a tenant, who got kicked out of his flat and beaten: »struck by the invisible hand of the market.«
1 The interview was conducted in 2017, some current information has been added in square brackets by the interviewees.
Syrena is an autonomous collective that is a headquarters for the Warsaw Tenants Association which focuses on housing struggles and tenants’ rights. Syrena is based in a reclaimed tenement building in Warsaw. The space functions as a place for non-commercial activities and support for local initiatives and inhabitants. The building is a typical case in the history of reprivatization – the procedure of transferring community-owned houses to so-called investors. It was a squat in March 2011, now it is inhabited by about 35 people and hosts several other organizations like the Warsaw Revolutionary Theatre, immigrant support and antifascist groups, a bike workshop, an anarchist library as well as the coffeehouse Café Kryzys. Lisa Puchner of dérive talked1 with activists from Syrena and Café Kryzys about their stories and the situation of tenants in Warsaw. Interview — It All Started with RAGE and ANGER
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K ACPER POBŁOCKI
SALON — Domestication
of Warsaw’s Public Space
St. Alexander Church, Plac Trzech Krzyży Square, 2015; Photo — Bartosz Górka, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
Capital, elite, gentrification, bourgeoisie, working class, Old Town, Warsaw, street life, salon, reconstruction, urbanization, socialization
St. Alexander Church, Plac Trzech Krzyży Square. Source: Warszawa stolica Polski, Społeczny Fundusz Odbudowy Stolicy, wyd. II, Warsaw 1949, p.36
ANDRZEJ GÓRZ AND WOJTEK MATEJKO INTERVIEWED BY LISA PUCHNER
Creating spaces for free thought and FREE activities Public Space, autonomy, sustainability, cooperation, housing, accessibility, privatization, valorization
All about a once long-forgotten site in central Warsaw
Photo — Adrian Grycuk
Jazdów is a site to the south of Warsaw’s city centre where the initiative Open Jazdów offers a social, cultural and ecological public programme. It is well known for the small wooden houses (Finnish houses) erected there after World War II. For decades the area was all but forgotten by the city council, until about six years ago when it took the decision to dismantle the houses and destroy the surrounding gardens. Today the houses are still there. Lisa Puchner from dérive spoke to Andrzej Górz, who lives at the site, and Wojtek Matejko, who works there, about the history of the place, the threat of demolition and plans to rescue Jazdów and the Finnish houses and develop a non-commercial and autonomous space for the people of Warsaw.
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
JOANNA KUSIAK
The Cunning of CHAOS and Its ORDERS
A Taxonomy of Urban Chaos in Post-Socialist Warsaw and Beyond
Chaos, order, Warsaw, neoliberalism, shock therapy, modernization, improvisation, DIY urbanism, Global South, post-socialism, everyday life, privatization, property
The collage Warsaw ready for Euro 2012 created by a local artist after the decision to build a temporary McDonald’s on the lot originally designated for the Museum of Modern Art; Collage: Robert Danieluk
Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized. Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
Kunstinsert / Artistic Insert Joanna Rajkowska Trees and Stumps Joanna Rajkowska works in and with the public space, which she perceives as a highly political place where different forms of life meet. In 2002 she realized her most famous project in Warsaw – Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue. On her own initiative and inspired by a trip to Israel, she set up the 15-metre-high artificial palm tree on one of the city’s main roads, the Alej Jerozolimskich. It still stands there as an exotic foreign body that has become a point of identification and orientation in the city. Rajkowska selected two photos for dérive showing how the tree is cared for (again and again, the tree has to be provided with new bark), and related these to a current work of hers that constitutes a monument to the deforestation of Polish primeval forests. She writes about the photos: 1) This is the date palm tree bark that we use to cover the trunk of the artificial palm tree in Warsaw (Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, 2002), the brightest and most joyful project of all my public works. It refers to the multicultural city that Warsaw once was, to its unbelievable vibe and energy. The bark is very expensive and we usually buy it in the United States. So we try to keep some of it spare and even recycle it sometimes. In 2014 we decided to spread the new bark on the roof of one of the buildings of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, allowing it to weather and better match the old bark. It was damn cold on that day but I really wanted to capture the wild look of it against the Warsaw cityscape. It was magic but my fingers got completely frozen and I only regained the feeling in the tips of my fingers months later. 2) This is the trunk of the palm tree itself, under reconstruction. It is important to keep it looking alive. Apparently it is an important point of reference for many visitors, newcomers and refugees in Warsaw. They say it makes them feel at home. The palm tree is 15 meters high (including the crown), so we need scaffolding to do anything. Years ago, when the weather was good, we would usually have a couple of bottles of beer in secret, right under the palm tree leaves, high up. It was great and I remember the sensation of having real power over Jerusalem Avenue down below. Now, the regulations are so strict that we can’t do this any more. :( 3) Times are very different now in comparison to 2002, when Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue came to life. This project (I shall not enter into your heaven, 2017) is a cry of desperation. It points to an uprooting, a cutting off, or a wrenching. I created a wall of 22 tree roots stacked in six columns. Not only is the right-wing government logging the ancient primeval forests in Poland, but we, as humans and citizens, are also going through a period of extensive uprooting. It is such a paradox that the more they are trying to root society in the national soil, the more uprooted I feel. It is reckless and painful. Joanna Rajkowski’s exhibition Suiciders at the TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art in Szczeczin (http://trafo.art) has just come to an end and is to be followed by a solo exhibition at l’étrangère in London in September and the Qalandiya International Biennale in Ramallah from 3 October 2018. rajkowska.com Andreas Fogarasi
Joanna Rajkowska — Kunstinsert
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TYMON RADWAŃSKI INTERVIEWED BY CHRISTOPH LAIMER
Urban grassroots movements in POLAND
Activists from Ruchy Miejskie dla Warszawy (Urban Movement Coalition in Warsaw). Together they will run for this year’s local elections in Warsaw.
In Polish cities fundamental problems have been growing for years, hindering their development and lowering the quality of life for inhabitants. That’s one of the reasons why Poland now has a strong urban social movement, and has had for several years. In numerous cities, groups that refer to the right to the city idea or have a municipal orientation are active and quite a few are also represented in local parliaments. To deepen cooperation between these grassroots initiatives, the Kongres Ruchów Miejskich (Congress of Urban Movements) was established in 2011. Several initiatives based on the interaction of various urban movements at the national level have already emerged. In 2013 Miasto Jest Nasze (The City is Ours) was founded in Warsaw and, in 2014, the party had already fielded candidates in the local elections. Tymon Radwański is an activist for Miasto Jest Nasze and one of the organizers of the forthcoming Fearless Cities Conference in Warsaw. Christoph Laimer from dérive asked him a few questions about the urban social movement in Poland and especially in Warsaw.
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
MANIFESTO 1 (1934): JAN CHMIELEWSKI, SZYMON SYRKUS
Warsaw as a FUNCTIONAL Urbanization, traffic, waterways, topography, transcontinental route, communication, transport, network, planning, architects
CITY
Architects design buildings – which is to say that they compose the shape of the future. The discipline we have studied, the engineering skills and practical experience we have gained all demand to be perfected, but negative trends in the economy are having a significant effect on our profession. The potential productiveness of architects is not being exploited enough. Even those of us who are working to full capacity feel that the work we do is not fully satisfying. We face restrictions imposed on the building industry and technical constraints; our professional skills are being wasted. And all this is happening at a time when the need for construction is so strikingly apparent and the mass of the population is being adversely affected […] The reason for the constrictions imposed on our profession lies beyond the limits of our activities as architects: it is rooted in a failure to bring order to the forces that underlie the economy and society, and in the inappropriate way that goods are distributed once they have been produced […] Architects will find their place in the production process, as professionals, once the overall shape of production has been put in order. Only then will they be in a position to design cities, regions and indeed countries, while remaining fully aware of the ultimate end in sight. […]
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
MANIFESTO 2 (1955): BOLESŁAW BIERUT
CARE for the HUMAN person
population growth, Nazi occupation, warcrime, socialist architecture, social infrastructure
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
MANIFESTO 3 (2006): BOHDAN JAŁOWIECKI
Is WARSAW becoming a city of the THIRD World?
Heritage, capital, housing, investor, public space, creative city, public transport, mobility, gated communities, star architecture, social infrastructure
»The city is being developed by foreign investors in line with their interests: it is a steered, dependent form of urban expansion.« Photo — Wistula.
A city reflects its residents. It also shares their fortunes. The present state of Poland’s capital, Warsaw, arises from the situation in the country as a whole. It mirrors a large but relatively undeveloped country on the periphery of Europe. Conditions in Poland have come to mean that Warsaw currently fails to match the most important metropolitan centres of the continent. Equally, however, a large influx of foreign investment and the arrival of subsidiaries of international corporations have helped launch the process of re-developing a city that was destroyed by war and then badly reconstructed according to socialist realist architectural models. A meeting of old and new lies behind the contrasts and imbalances in the city. Similar phenomena may be noted in countries of the Developing World. But are these contrasts diminishing, remaining stable or increasing? The following article attempts to offer an answer to this question. Bohdan Ja/l owiecki — Is WARSAW becoming a city of the THIRD World?
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Besprechungen Otto Wagner – zweimal zum Gedenken Peter Leeb
Der 100. Todestag Otto Wagners ist Anlass von Ausstellungen und Veranstaltungen, um den großen Architekten aus dem Hintergrund des Wiener Alltags in den Vordergrund der Reflexion zu bringen. Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert ist es bereits her, als das Werk, im damals noch als Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien bezeichneten Haus am Karlsplatz, zum ersten Mal überhaupt vertieft gezeigt worden ist. Seit damals rückte der (Wiener) Vater der Moderne vermehrt ins architektonische, aber auch ins touristische Bewusstsein. Hier sollen zwei Ausstellungen besprochen werden, eine im Wien Museum und eine im Museum für angewandte Kunst. Die aktuelle, unter dem schlichten Titel Otto Wagner, im Wien Museum von Andreas Nierhaus und Eva-Maria Orocz zusammengestellte Schau ist die bisher größte zum Gesamtwerk und gliedert dieses in chronologischer Ordnung. Im gesamten Obergeschoß des Hauses werden unzählige Zeichnungen und Modelle aber auch Möbel sowie persönliche Gegenstände – die Sammlung von Fotografien und Visitenkarten bekannter und berühmter ZeitgenossInnen lassen hier eine vergangene Welt wiedererstehen – in 12 Stationen dem Publikum vorgestellt. Die atemberaubende Qualität der Zeichnungen, die durch die unermüdlichen MitarbeiterInnen Otto Wagners entstanden sind, überzeugt auch uns noch durch deren Klarheit und Schönheit. Die Blätter waren natürlich nicht Selbstzweck, sondern gezielt eingesetzte Mittel zur Durchsetzung von Projekten, ob als Wettbewerbsbeitrag bzw. mit oder ohne spezifischem Auftrag. So zeigt sich Wagner als früher Meister der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Für uns ist es aufschlussreich, im Fall gebauter Wirklichkeit, das Verhältnis zwischen Projektion und Realisierung zu erkunden, ein Thema mit durchaus aktuellem Bezug. Es entbehrt nicht einer gewissen Ironie, dass die
Idealentwurf des 22. Bezirks für die Studie »Die Grossstadt«, 1911, Otto Wagner, (c) Wien Museum
Ausstellung genau an dem Ort stattfindet, für den Wagner ein neues Stadtmuseum als städtebauliche Rahmung des Karlsplatzes vorgesehen hatte und der derzeit auf seine Erweiterung in Form eines Aufbaus auf den Bestand wartet. Wagners überragende Könnerschaft wurde allerdings durch eine Bauaufgabe befördert, die in Art und Umfang ohne Beispiel war, nämlich der Gestaltung sämtlicher Bauten der neuen Wiener Stadtbahn. Seit dem Wettbewerbserfolg für den Wiener Generalregulierungsplan 1892 war Wagners strategisch-moderner Zugang zu den Problemen der rasant wachsenden Großstadt bekannt. Ein Zugang, der bewusst im Gegensatz zu den romantischen Vorstellungen seines Zeitgenossen Camillo Sitte stand. Obwohl für Wagner die brachiale Methodik eines Baron Haussmann in Paris nicht in Frage kam – er versuchte Bestehendes weitgehend in seine Planung zu integrieren – stellt die bewusst gewählte horizontale Trassierung der Stadtbahn gegenüber der Wiener Hügellandschaft einen topografisch radikalen Schritt dar. Die Bogen- und Stationsbauwerke gelangen auf diese Weise zu deren unverwechselbaren lokalen Eigenart. Wagners Meisterschaft wird aber auch beim eigentlichen Benützen der Bauwerke deutlich: gibt es denn beque-
Besprechungen
mere Stufen oder angenehmere Geländer und Handläufe? Die überaus klar organisierten Stationen, ob nun als Torbauten über Niveau geführter Geleise oder als Pavillons einer unterirdischen Trassenführung, werden bis zum heutigen Tag vom Publikum einmütig geschätzt wie kein anderes Infrastrukturprojekt der Stadt, die Donauinsel einmal ausgenommen. Sind auch einige Stationsbahnhöfe und beinahe auch eine ganze Brücke fortschrittsgläubiger Erneuerungsbestrebungen zum Opfer gefallen – der Kampf um genau jene markiert ein Umdenken in der hiesigen geschichtlichen Architekturrezeption. So ließ sich die Stadtbahn in das heutige U-Bahnnetz der Stadt integrieren und ist derart im Nachhinein zu einem herausragenden Beispiel zukunftsweisender Gestaltung geworden, das bei jeder gegenwärtigen Planung ernst genommen anstatt als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt werden sollte. In der Ausstellung wird immer wieder die Modernität Otto Wagners betont. Was aber bedeutet diese? Wagner erkannte, dass der Historismus keine adäquaten Antworten auf die Fragen dynamischer Industrialisierung und den sich daraus ergebenden Veränderungen des Lebens bieten kann. Sein Vorschlag eines Nutzstils, der
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Bor Die Baugruppe Bikes and Rails errichtet das 1. Neubauprojekt im habiTAT, dem Mietshäuser-Syndikat in Österreich. Am Wiener Hauptbahnhof entsteht ein Passivhaus mit 18 Mietwohnungen, FlüchtlingeWillkommen-WG, Gemeinschafts-Dachterrasse, Veranstaltungsraum, Radwerkstatt, Proberaum und Grätzel-Cafe. Das Haus wird der Verwertung am Immobilienmarkt entzogen und sichert selbstbestimmten und bezahlbaren Wohn-, Arbeits- und Kulturraum für viele Generationen.
Dafü Du kannst Erspartes als privaten Direktkredit mit frei wählbarer Laufzeit in unser Haus einlegen und unterstützt uns damit bei der Schaffung von selbstverwalteten und solidarischen Räumen im Herzen der Stadt.
Interesse Dein Geld sozial, lokal und transparent in unser Haus einzulegen? Infopaket anfordern unter www.bikesandrails.org.
* Bik* Öko * Sol * Un *
BACKISSUES
dérive Nr. 1 (01/2000) Schwerpunkte: Gürtelsanierung: Sicherheitsdiskurs, Konzept – und Umsetzungskritik, Transparenzbegriff; Institutionalisierter Rassismus am Beispiel der »Operation Spring« dérive Nr. 2 (02/2000) Schwerpunkte: Wohnsituation von MigrantInnen und Kritik des Integrationsbegriffes; Reclaim the Streets/ Politik und Straße dérive Nr. 3 (01/2001) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Spektaktelgesellschaft dérive Nr. 4 (02/2001) Schwerpunkte: Gentrifi cation, Stadtökologie dérive Nr. 5 (03/2001) Sampler: Salzburger Speckgürtel, Museumsquartier, räumen und gendern, Kulturwissenschaften und Stadtforschung, Virtual Landscapes, Petrzalka, Juden/Jüdinnen in Bratislava dérive Nr. 6 (04/2001) Schwerpunkt: Argument Kultur dérive Nr. 7 (01/2002) Sampler: Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit, Plattenbauten, Feministische Stadtplanung, Manchester, Augarten/Hakoah dérive Nr. 8 (02/2002) Sampler: Trznica Arizona, Dresden, Ottakring, Tokio, Antwerpen, Graffi ti dérive Nr. 9 (03/2002) Schwerpunkt in Kooperation mit dem Tanzquartier Wien: Wien umgehen dérive Nr. 10 (04/2002) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Produkt Wohnen dérive Nr. 11 (01/2003) Schwerpunkt: Adressierung dérive Nr. 12 (02/2003) Schwerpunkt: Angst dérive Nr. 13 (03/2003) Sampler: Nikepark, Mumbai, Radfahren, Belfast dérive Nr. 14 (04/2003) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Temporäre Nutzungen dérive Nr. 15 (01/2004) Schwerpunkt: Frauenöffentlichkeiten dérive Nr. 16 (02/2004) Sampler: Frankfurt am Arsch, Ghetto Realness, Hier entsteht, (Un)Sicherheit, Reverse Imagineering, Ein Ort des Gegen dérive Nr. 17 (03/2004) Schwerpunkt: Stadterneuerung dérive Nr. 18 (01/2005) Sampler: Elektronische Stadt, Erdgeschoßzonen, Kathmandu, Architektur in Bratislava dérive Nr. 19 (02/2005) Schwerpunkt: Wiederaufbau des Wiederaufbaus
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dérive Nr. 20 (03/2005) Schwerpunkt: Candidates and Hosts dérive Nr. 21/22 (01-02/2006) Schwerpunkt: Urbane Räume – öffentliche Kunst dérive Nr. 23 (03/2006) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Visuelle Identität dérive Nr. 24 (04/2006) Schwerpunkt: Sicherheit: Ideologie und Ware dérive Nr. 25 (05/2006) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Stadt mobil dérive Nr. 26 (01/2007) Sampler: Stadtaußenpolitik, Sofi a, Frank Lloyd Wright, Banlieus, Kreative Milieus, Refl exionen der phantastischen Stadt, Spatial Practices as a Blueprint for Human Rights Violations dérive Nr. 27 (02/2007) Schwerpunkt: Stadt hören dérive Nr. 28 (03/2007) Sampler: Total Living Industry Tokyo, Neoliberale Technokratie und Stadtpolitik, Planung in der Stadtlandschaft, Entzivilisierung und Dämonisierung, Stadt-Beschreibung, Die Unversöhnten dérive Nr. 29 (04/2007) Schwerpunkt: Transformation der Produktion dérive Nr. 30 (01/2008) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Cinematic Cities – Stadt im Film dérive Nr. 31 (02/2008) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Gouvernementalität dérive Nr. 32 (03/2008) Schwerpunkt: Die Stadt als Stadion dérive Nr. 33 (04/2008) Sampler: Quito, Identität und Kultur des Neuen Kapitalismus, Pavillonprojekte, Hochschullehre, Altern, Pliensauvorstadt, Istanbul, privater Städtebau, Keller, James Ballard dérive Nr. 34 (01/2009) Schwerpunkt: Arbeit Leben dérive Nr. 35 (02/2009) Schwerpunkt: Stadt und Comic dérive Nr. 36 (03/2009) Schwerpunkt: Aufwertung dérive Nr. 37 (04/2009) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Urbanität durch Migration dérive Nr. 38 (01/2010) Schwerpunkt: Rekonstruktion und Dekonstruktion dérive Nr. 39 (02/2010) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Kunst und urbane Entwicklung dérive Nr. 40/41 (03+04/2010) Schwerpunkt: Understanding Stadtforschung dérive Nr. 42 (01/2011) Sampler dérive Nr. 43 (02/2011) Sampler dérive Nr. 44 (03/2011) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt: Urban Nightscapes
dérive Nr. 45 (04/2011) Schwerpunkt: Urbane Vergnügungen dérive Nr. 46 (01/2012) (vergriffen) Das Modell Wiener Wohnbau dérive Nr. 47 (02/2012) Ex-Zentrische Normalität: Zwischenstädtische Lebensräume dérive Nr. 48 (03/2012) Stadt Klima Wandel dérive Nr. 49 (04/2012) Stadt selber machen dérive Nr. 50 (01/2013) (vergriffen) Schwerpunkt Straße dérive Nr. 51 (02/2013) Schwerpunkt: Verstädterung der Arten dérive Nr. 52 (03/2013) Sampler (vergriffen) dérive Nr. 53 (04/2013) Citopia Now dérive Nr. 54 (01/2014) Public Spaces. Resilience & Rhythm dérive Nr. 55 (02/2014) Scarcity: Austerity Urbanism dérive Nr. 56 (03/2014) (vergriffen) Smart Cities dérive Nr. 57 (04/2014) Safe City dérive Nr. 58 (01/2015) (vergriffen) Urbanes Labor Ruhr dérive Nr. 59 (02/2015) Sampler (vergriffen) dérive Nr. 60 (03/2015) Schwerpunkt: Henri Levebvre und das Recht aus Stadt dérive Nr. 61 (04/2015) (vergriffen) Perspektiven eines kooperativen Urbanismus dérive Nr. 62 (01/2016) Sampler dérive Nr. 63 (02/2016) Korridore der Mobilität dérive Nr. 64 (03/2016) Ausgrenzung, Stigmatisierung, Exotisierung dérive Nr. 65 (04/2016) housing the many Stadt der Vielen dérive Nr. 66 (01/2017) Judentum und Urbanität dérive Nr. 67 (02/2017) Nahrungsraum Stadt dérive Nr. 68 (03/2017) Sampler dérive Nr. 69 (04/2017) Demokratie dérive Nr. 70 (01/2018) Detroit dérive Nr. 71 (01/2018) Bidonvilles & Bretteldörfer
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dérive No 72 — WARSAW. Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung
dérive
dérive
WARSAW Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
Juli — Sept 2018
ISSN 1608-8131 8 euro
dérive
WARSAW — Devastation, Modernization, (Re-)privatization
(Re-)privatization, urban movements, housing, eviction, transport axis, public space, destruction, chaos/order, neoliberalism, modernization, gentrification, reconstruction, property restitution
No 72
N o 72
Łukasz Drozda — Wild reprivatization, S. 12
dérive – Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung
»The phenomenon of wild reprivatization seems to pose one of the most serious challenges to urban policy in Poland.«
Juli — Sept 2018