A Diverse Landscape Where People Live
Eleftheria Gavriilidou bi’bak Berlin Nov ‘16
A Diverse Landscape Where People Live
Eleftheria Gavriilidou bi’bak Berlin Nov ‘16
Contents
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II.
Preface
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ELEMENTS
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A Metropolitan Landscape. Aims of the city of the 21st century The “Commons”: A Global Experience Utopia & Topia: A Garden meaning of Paradise
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TERRITORY
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Towards 100 Urban Gardens Unmapping a “Neighborhood Laboratory” Himmelbeet, Wedding Prinzessingarten, Kreuzberg Allemende-Kontor, Tempelhof Die Gärtnerei, Neuköln
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III. PEOPLE
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Getting familiar with “Diversity”: “Der Tiger Kommt In Den Garten” The “Newcomers”. A child citizen’s perspective: “QUIZ! Die Stadt als Rätsel” Building the “Commons”: A Dinner
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Sources
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“The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is the result” Sauer, C., 1925. The Morphology of Landscape. University of California Publications in Geography (22), p. 19-53
Preface
_Concept A Diverse Landscape is born upon the diversity in which the contemporary metropolis is formed under its challenging pressures. It consists of an exploration on the interactions between the urban territory and the multiple protagonists that are inscribed on it, are getting familiar with it, envision and transform it, creating identity, a sense of place and belonging. More than an ambitious attempt to document the complex mechanisms through which a city gives birth and cures its crises, this miniproject captures, like the lens of an urban flâneur, the imprints of this process in space and time. Diversity: a point of difference, variety, multiformity, dissimilarity (Collins, 2014) Landscape: the way a community is recorded upon the natural background and finally perceives it, a living document of an evolving culture *not just a reflection of culture but an active instrument in the shaping of a modern culture” (Corner, 1999) _Parts Choosing as a space the city of Berlin, as a starting point the Wedding district and Soldiner Keiz, and as a place of time the autumn 2016, when city is full of urban experiments and at the same time a new wave of “newcomers” are challenged to be integrated, the following issue could be proposed in two parts: The first one, “Territory” approaches spots of the public space as contemporary forms of urban creativity, community building and citizenship. The garden in its urban form, materializes the utopian image of Paradise, the ideal and necessary space for spontaneity and the archetypical contact with nature. The mosaic of the 100 urban gardening projects developed in the city within the last decade, are studied and documented as a case study of an emerging neighborhood’s “know-how”. During the research, 4 exemplar gardens and their managers were interviewed to unravel the elements which make a community initiative successful, sustainable and innovative, the diversity of activities and the challenges they faced up, the tools they used to make their visions happen. The second one, “People” is getting closer to the users of the space, the “newcomers” and the process through which they perceive and find their space into the new urban landscape. Second generation immigrants and recent refugees, children and adults consisted the community of people in the 3 workshops held in bi’bak, inspiring this work. Preface
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_Means This project is the outcome of the documentation and interpretation following a series of actions, workshops and incentives, in which the author had the opportunity to take part from October till November 2016: a)Research on recent bibliographical sources upon urban theory and critique, as well as studies around the urban transformations of the city of Berlin during the last decade. In this part, the title “Territories in Crisis: Architecture and Urbanism facing changes in Europe” set the framework of the discussion, while the collections of articles “The participatory City”, the “Make_Shift City: Renegotiating the Urban Commons” and “Urban Living” focused on the contemporary debate around the community participation and the modern culture of the commons with special references to the city of Berlin. b)Research on the City’s of Berlin Strategy for 2030 related with the urban environment, the public space and the citizens’ engagement on participatory processes. In this direction, the issue “Berlin Strategy – Urban Development Concept Berlin 2030” launched by the City of Berlin, as well as the guidance of Sophie Leitenroth from the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment were sufficiently enlightening. c)Attendance of related exhibitions and panels as: the “Capital: Debt, Territory, Utopia”, hosted at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art, and the ANCB (The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory) discussion upon the “Responsive City” – “Recording a Sensibility of Place” on the 3rd of Nov. 2016, d)Insitu Visits & Interviews with the managers of 4 of the most well-known urban gardens in the city of Berlin (Prinzessingarten, Himmelbeet, Tempelhof, Die Gaertnerei), e) Participation in 3 workshops engaging multicultural communities, of 30 children and around 60 recent refugees, within the urban space of Soldiner Kiez neighborhood in Wedding. The workshops were hosted in bi’bak: “Der Tiger Kommt In Den Garten” (artists: Tuna Arkun & Heather Purcellworking) (14/10/2016), “QUIZ! Die Stadt als Rätsel” (in collaboration with the artists: Petra Kubert, Eva Kietzmann, Axel Gerber) (31/10 – 4/11/2016) and “Syrische Küche” (in collaboration with the artist: Julia Kapelle). _Continuity The following work is considered as the beginning of a bigger scale attempt to
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understand, absorb and transmit the “diversity” as observed in Berlin in autumn 2016, into the work with the City of Thessaloniki the upcoming months. It is constructed as a resource for inspiration and knowhow, working with the local communities in Greece, where the challenge of integration and citizens’ engagement in participatory processes, is meant to become more and more urgent in the future. Kipos3 project in Thessaloniki, will definitely make use of this tool. _Acknowledgements This project was conceived within the framework of “START - Create Cultural Change”, a program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, conducted in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the German Association of Sociocultural Centers. I would like to gratefully acknowledge bi’bak, Berlin, Malve Lippmann and Can Sungu for hosting the activities and guiding with all means this exploration, the artists for the collaboration during the workshops, Tuna Arkun, Heather Purcellworking, Petra Kubert, Eva Kietzmann, Axel Gerber and Julia Kapelle, as well as the gardens’ managers Marco Clausen from Prinzessingarten, Jonas Flototto from Himmelbeet, Gerda Münnich from Allmende-Kontor Tempelhof and Sebastian Latz from Die Gärtnerei for offering their time and energy to inspire a common initiative in Greece.
Berlin, November 2016_
Preface
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I.
ELEMENTS
“The way we deal with space is actually what determines the defining circumstances of social life” Michel de Certau , “Kunst des Handelns”, Berlin, 1988, p. 187. Translated from German by JH (as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002)
A Metropolitan Landscape. Aims for the city of the 21st century
_Metropolis in crisis Metropolis, the common landscape experience for more than the 75% of the global population, describes the space where all crises are born and cured. The metropolis’ challenges are different as well as common: investments in urban infrastructure, development policies, co-existence among the heterogeneity. According to Bianchetti, C., 2015, “the European territories seem to float in a sea of crumbs, making them alien to convincing forms of thought or design. Their fragility and density are closely related to the crisis they are experiencing: a shift in the relationship between capital and labor; a tendency for falling profit rates; a more inflexible relationship between the economy and resources; climate change; population aging; increased inequality and institutional crises” (Bianchetti, C., 2015). He continues regarding the contemporary needs: “The crisis forces individuals, groups, and societies to rethink how they can live together in unbalanced territories that they are very complex, but nearly always full of good infrastructures, territories that include urban nuclei, fields, sometimes very large natural areas, model neighborhoods, the headquarters of large enterprises and multinationals, famous universities, important health centers, big sport stadiums and cultural venues”. Paula Vigano called this situation Métropole Horizontale, not a field of specialized functions, but more of “an unequal field, crossed by polarization patterns, and yet in more cases integrated, marked by close-knit networks, energy flows, infiltrations, and an exchange of goods, knowledge and individuals”(Bianchetti, C., 2015). _Aims The ambitions arising for the city of the 21st century, are either closer to the capital demands or to the social needs, similar either with classic aims or totally new contemporary approaches. The city of the 21st century has to be innovative and competitive, inclusive and integrated, resilient and responsive, adaptable and evolutionary, participatory and democratic, creative and prosperous. The City of Berlin, “a city in movement” after several snapshots of urban transformations (the reunification of 1989, the remnant land of 1990s & the increasing land values of 2000s, the gentrification forces of 2010s) describes the strategic goals for 2030.
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“Metropolis is the identification of nervous stimulation induced by the rapid crowing of images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions” Georg Simmel, 1903 as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
“The city is a changeable labyrinth, producer of new desires and habits” Benjamin, 1903 as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
“The decline of reason refers to a specific area, that of a big city” Tafuri, M., 1976, as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
“The city functions as a reality that frames concrete actions as well as a site for fictional endeavours” Benjamin, 1903 as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
“For the inhabitants of the metropolis, the urban landscape meant a repeated confrontation wth the question of one’s own identity. The city is the place where you can get lost in reality, even though your own position is identifiable on the map” Jongbloed, M., 2002
“The city has become the dominating theme for political legendry, but is no longer an area of a programmed and controlled process. Beneath the ideological discourse, deceptions and power alliances proliferate with no recognizable identification, graspable contours or rational transparency and are out of governable control” De Certeau, M., 1988, as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
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Berlin then, is envisioned as “a strong city with a strong future”. It is described as “socially inclusive and responsible, creative, able to innovate and adapt, with attractive neighbourhoods, a diverse urban metropolis, easy to live and with plenty green spaces, active networks and development opportunities, a strong city, which has learnt to shape growth fairly, responsibly and together, a global city, metropolis with enormous untapped land potential, green and compact, a place for everyone to explore their creativity” (Berlin Strategy 2030, 2016: 5,8,16). Creative Berlin, desired, city and green growing together, reinforcing neighborhood diversity consist some of the common expressions of the vision. In the same concept, green spaces seem to be in the focus of the future programs and plans. “The 21st century is the century of the city and of green spaces within the cities. To a great extent, all the important issues facing us in the future, from demographic changes to climate adaptation, can be answered through the appropriate treatment of public spaces”, refers Reiner Nagel, Board Director Federal Foundation of Baukultur.
”Berlin as a community project, a new culture of participation”, is referred in the same framework among the visions without though a description of specific actions to turn the vision into an a guide of urban policies.
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“One important goal for 2030 relates to open spaces for creative and cultural artists and keeping them separate from commercial interests. How can we achieve this? Not just in terms of space, but also intellectually and politically?” Moritz van Dulmen, CEO Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH
On the northwest part of the city though, in Berlin – Wedding, the diverse contredictions of the metropolis take place. In one of the most ethnically diverse districts in Germany’s capital city, in Soldiner Kiez (a part of Wedding) 8/10 of the residents have migrant background, most of them with Turkish origin. Wedding has always been a working class district. Today, being a disadvantaged area, with an unemployment rate of 26%, and mixed uses of traditional or forgotten small scale businesses facing the competition from huge global franchises, it seems like a mosaic of different ethnicities, cultures, needs and desires inscribed on space.
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ELEMENTS
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The “Commons”: A Global Experience Public Space in the era of socio-economic uncertainty In the contemporary global and diverse metropolis, new forms of public space are demanded combining environmental, cultural and design qualities, while engaging more protagonists in the decision – making process. It is a fact that the majority of cities and municipalities can hardly afford new green spaces and the management or maintenance of the existing. Along with the limited budgets for urban infrastructure and expensive top-down masterplans, a new need for efficient and even resilient urban governance is born, related primarily with the use and morphology of the public space, the last spots for social co-existence. In this new context, the local communities and authorities obtain the great force to change the everyday urban landscape, more than the way that the central government managed during the last decades. The citizen in the discussion of the city In this framework there is the challenge to think in programmatic terms - inventive uses, activities, events, installations or happenings, temporal or permanent -, a new planning culture of less authoritarian impact from “top-down”, adapted to the citizens’ needs and spontaneous initiatives, to local responsibilities, to economic and ecological impulse with the appropriate coordination of all protagonists. With these qualities to get of stronger and stronger importance for city planners and architects in the future, “small scale” projects seem to have a potential to create broader impact and innovation in the stable urban environment of economic shrinkage. The introduction of “food” in the core of this discussion, is meant less as an asset for self-sufficiency, and mainly as a key tool for building in a holistic way the concept of the co-ownership of public space. Moreover, it is seen, as the “carrot” to bring citizens in the discussion of the city and towards the development of a collective memory and a new culture of civic engagement. The interesting blendings, coming up of these “urban yards”, “jardins partagées”, “campaignes urbaines” or “commonscapes”, among the different communities engaged and the different spatial qualities applied, mark more than utopias, contemporary urban realities, neighborhood landscapes, cultural symbolisms and urban manifests. Decades after the heterotopian collage of Agnes Denes in 1892 for the Battery Park in Manhattan as a wheatfield, the new Battery Park nest of community gardening verifies the reality of the common landscapes. The spaces operate as grounds for innovation, new thriving natures, business models, efficient urban renewals, placemaking structures. ELEMENTS
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“Cultural strategies are able to attain accomplishments above and beyond those of planning” “A city can become a landscape yet remain a city; how spaces can be networked, creating social ties; and how such ties can be activated through spatial initiatives. In all their diversity, the approaches share the social dimension of appropriation, which is not apparent until we consider them collectively” Regula Lüscher, Senate Building Director, Berlin, 2014 (as cited by Francesca Ferguson, 2014)
“Urban Commons: shared spaces, resources and services in cities that citizens need to exert their democratic right to preserve, the acts of reclaiming central spaces of the city as democratic and political spaces – spaces of commonality” Ferguson, 2014
“The commons consist a political process: an act of making and reclaiming that we manage collectively” Michael Hardt, 2013 (as cited by Francesca Ferguson, 2014)
“The commons can be seen here as a civic, and urban platform: a space both real and symbolic within which the renegotiation of shared social and political values and resources can be acted out and given built form, the process of challenging, extending and interpreting space” “The refuelling of the civic imagination with regard to urban spaces and their potentials often begins with proposing the seemingly impossible, but presents this as a concrete spatial utopia that can be realised and can manifest itself in the city” Francesca Ferguson, 2014
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“Ever since the late twentieth century, an era in which various attempts at utopia spectacularly failed, our awareness of ecological decline has heightened this sense of apparent hopelessness. The image of a lost worlds is constantly communicated, creating indifferent, apolitical and selfish individuals. Poetry and imagination n, yet above all thought, thus become, as it were, a transgression towards something that lies in the future. Here, art is not only a first step, a gamble, but also the very essence of transformation� Capital: Debt, Territory, Utopia. Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin 2-6 November 2016
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Utopia & Topia: A Garden Meaning of Paradise “In the beginning, God creted a garden called Eden. Eden is traditionally located in Mesopotamia, probably in the northern part of the region since an apple tree was able to grow there without irrigation. Before the Fall, Eden was fertile, fragrant oasis of delight, magically calm except for the sweet sounds of water and laughter. Since the down of civilization, humankind has ceaselessly endeavoured to recreate this mythical Paradise” Gabrielle Van Zuylen, G., 1994
From the European medieval cloisters to the first garden cities of U.K., from the productive urban landscapes of the II World War in Europe and U.S.A. to the chinese communists’ structures, from the post-war “pocket gardens” of Aldo Van Eyck in the Netherlands to the first guerilla sunflowers of Liz Christy Bowery - Houston Garden in NYC of ‘70s, the history of the “Commons” evolves as well as the history of the visions and ideas upon the “city of tomorrow” and the quality of the human life within it.
Van Zuylen, G., 1994. The Garden Visions of Paradise, Thames and Hudson: New Horizons ELEMENTS
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“The garden provides a vision of Paradise on earth. It is an expression of our ability to transform nature into art� Gabrielle Van Zuylen, G., 1994
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ELEMENTS
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II.
TERRITORIES
“Be it a city or a country, a kitchen or a body, a territory is a political area. Defined by its boundaries, it can grow, shrink or disappear altogether. Unlike purely geographical terrains, it is an arena that constantly has to get reasserted and sometimes defended. It is like a vessel that can be filled or emptied, and that over the course of history has multiple I ncidents of conquest, acquisition and dispossession, displacement and genocide. Above all, it can be associated with the expansive, accumulative dynamics of capitalism� Capital: Debt, Territory, Utopia. Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin 2-6 November 2016
Towards 100 Urban Gardens “The growing number of community gardens in Berlin are an expression of the active and progressive appropriation of urban spaces by citizens and thus of grassroots urbanism and can be interpreted as actually existing alternatives to traditional state-provided open green spaces”. “The engagement of the residents is a response to a lack in quality and maintainace of existing public parks due to their inadequate funding. The growing political acceptance and support of community gardening projects on the other hand, that is, of a “private” activity in the public realm are an expression of roll-out neo-liberalism with its changes in form and function of statehood and governance. Voluntarism gains new importance in this creation of the active and responsible citizen and unburdens the state at the same time”. Rosol, M., 2016
The urban gardening projects have increased in Berlin from 3 in 2003 to 100 in 2016. This fact reveals not only a contemporary know-how of the city in terms of self-organization, community building and networking, but also a global demand, a tendency to look at the city and the public space through the lens of the transformation potential, experimentation and new, innovative urban living models.
Berlin’s Nature.
Gandy, M., Mapping Urban Nature. In Beebeejaun, Y. (ed.), 2016. Participatory City, jovis Verlag GmbH TERRITORIES
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Unmapping a “Neighborhood Academy” Himmelbeet, Wedding On the crossing of the Luxemburger and Ruheplatz Strasse in Wedding, Himmelbeet garden (Himmel – heaven, beet – bed/pot) consists one of the most interesting examples of sustainable and even profitable initiatives of the kind. Less than 300 planting beds, half of them individual and the rest “communal”, a small playground, a shop, a café, an oven, a small theatre, a compost area, and tens of small improvised seats among the planting area, deck chairs and umbrellas consist the diverse landscape of a community of more than 300 volunteers. Except for the interesting spatial organization, the design qualities (obvious even in the self-constructed parts), as well as the diverse functions of the place, the garden’s position in the surrounding urban environment, near an empty lot, close to a playground, in a multicultural neighbourhood, exempt its symbolic dimension. The words “Still Not Loving Gentrification” written on the grey wall of the closest building comment the present and the future of the neighbourhood.
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“Most of the people come to have a social life and to interact. They may plant flowers and come for a beer, or a workshop with bees and honey, they my want to learn to make bread or to build something with their hands” “It is undoubtedly a kind of a movement, and now we see so different urban gardening projects in Berlin. Each one is particular. And this movement is totally different from the perfect allotment gardens with the german flags. These spaces are socially and culturally innovative. They mainly consist a new need in the urban space, different from the traditional land uses, different from the park, the playground, the sports place. They serve different needs for different, contemporary citizens” Jonas Flötotto, Himmelbeet, Wedding, October 2016
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Start of the project: Initiator: Area: State of Operation: Community Network: Partcipation Rules:
2011 Hannah Linsmeier 1.700 sm Urban Garden and Cultural space around 300 citizens community garden’s part accessible to all & 300 individual beds of 1 sm each, participation fee 60€/year/partcipant for one bed & its soil, 9 hours obligatory social work for each participant (according to his/her competencies or interests) Official Land Use: urban lot belonging to the State of Berlin oriented to school and sports facilities Scope of Activities: workshops, community harvest events, educational projects and quidance on cultivation methods, special events like Halloween, promotion events to bring people in the garden especially people in need of social integration & people with disabilities, harvest offers to social institutions, social dinners Number of employees: 5 Revenues: annual participation fee, bar and restaurant, shop, nursery, bicycle repair, funding programs (Social City – European Program, Aletion Meusch – Private Organisation, collaboration with Degew, a Social Housing Company, for the design of an urban garden project in the new development area) Interviewee: Jonas Flötotto
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Prinzessingarten, Kreuzberg The story of Prinzessingarten starts around 2009, when Marco Clausen & Robert Shaw inspired by the formats of urban agriculture in Cuba, thought of inventing a new model of green space in the open to experimentation city of Berlin. What followed is that they inspired with their own attempt a whole world of urban gardening projects in the world, not only because they brought “the idyll” or the “utopic” within the city core, nor because they engaged the citizens in collective and communal processes, but mainly because they managed to make a living from it, thus to professionalize it in a legal context, when none context was existing (and still does not exist) to support this kind of initiatives. In contrast with the many different kinds of urban gardening projects: allotments, school gardens, intercultural gardens, community gardens – squatted places, Prinzessingarten’s concept was to collaborate with the local authorities and to build in a legal context a model of an urban green space managed by the citizens. In an ephemeral landscape, a portable, mobile garden for temporary use, the aims of the environmental education, biodiversity and urban resilience could be applied. The model of operation for this space is totally communal, without individual pots, rather common planting areas which people commit to be responsible for in daily basis. Except for the gardening activities, the educational programs, the artistic events and the small businesses within the garden (the gastronomy or the nursery of the perennials), more activities have been incorporated to enforce the concept of the garden as a space with civic qualities also. MAZI Workshop and “Neighbourhood Academy” complete this concept offering a common space for discussions, film screenings and presentations around contemporary urban questions from around the world (from “the right to the city” till the gentrification forces), building finally valuable networking toolkits for raising collective awareness in local scale. An architecture open to the garden, produced by locally available resources consists the new landmark for the experimental character of the garden (the construction was in need of regular building permission). Among the main challenges that Marco underlined, is the lack of policy in City’s level. “It operates ephemerally. The project is not safe as there is no any kind of policy from the Municipality. There is a policy only for allotment gardens (huge areas within the city), for the existing parks and for the privatisation for housing projects. This space is rent otherwise is not possible to make things in a public space. A “green space” is either managed by the City or it is a private space. So there is no “green” to be managed by the neighbourhood neither any kind of long – term strategy to incorporate this perspective in the future, even though the term “public space” should mention exactly that: management by the citizens”. Lack of related policy
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exists in European level also, as he continues “we cannot get certification for organic cultivations because we cultivate non-registered by the European Union seeds (old varieties)” About what are the potential of initiatives like Prinzessingarten to the future city, he insists “they consists new forms of ownership, new forms of negotiating with the Municipality” “Indeed, this garden started with this romantic image of cooperative gardening and learning, and also of personal growth and a dialogue about food. And indeed there was the question of how you would ever make money doing this. Selling the vegetables would be hopeless. However, processing the vegetables, cooking them, and offering them as a selling product at the garden cafe, and to then make money with this —this was the original idea of financing the garden” Marco Clausen, Prinzessingarten, Kreuzberg, October 2016
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“The Prinzessingarten was pioneering because it showed sites & social needs existing in the city and had not been fully understood. It showed a way of thinking about the city� (Clausen, 2013) A Diverse Landscape
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Start of the project: Initiators: Area: State of Operation: Community Network:
2009 Marco Clausen & Robert Shaw 6.000 sm of a derelict site in Moritzplatz Urban Garden and Cultural space a network of 1.000 volunteers continuously on the venue, citizens, interns, young people doing military / social service Partcipation Rules: a community “mobile” / transferable garden accessible to all, no individual pots, no participation rate, a project space hosting a large variety of activities in the field of gardening, sustainable living, art projects, educational programs Official Land Use: urban lot belonging to the State of Berlin oriented to urban development (licensed from 2009 to 2015, and after the support of the community it was renewed for 3 more years till 2018 afterwards the use of the space is unknown) Scope of Activities: 340 industrial crates for planting, 30 m3 of compost, kitchen with garden café, open workshops, a library, a restaurant, 500 different types of vegetables, educational activities with kindergardens, schools, youth clubs and universities, artists and experts community harvest events, community meetings, lectures and presentations around contemporary urban questions (new space within the garden, named “Neighbourhood Academy”)
Number of employees: around 30 persons, 2 employees for administration, 2 employees for guided tours, 1 employee keeping the space, 2 founders (Marco & Robert), 1 daughter profitable company working with landscape and gardening projects of the same kind (4 employees), gastronomy (café and restaurant with 20 employees to serve up to 400 dishes a day) Revenues: gastronomy (bar and restaurant), perennials nursery in separate space within the garden, funding programs, bicycle repair and recycle, landscape / garden design profitable company Interviewee: Marco Clausen
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Allemende-Kontor, Tempelhof The story of one of the most exemplar gardens in the world, Allemende-Kontor Tempelhof -a contemporary, spontaneous materialisation of Paradise -, starts in late 2007, with the closing of the airport and the return of the largest open space again to the city. An airfield was released and the process of converting it into a public park revealed a unique opportunity to rethink the ways in which a recreational urban space of this scale could be developped over time (Ferguson, 2014). Then, a group of 11 passionate gardeners from around Berlin, people working on community gardening projects in Berlin, meeting in or out of the city, found that it was necessary to have a physical place to share all the knowledge in one garden, and Tempelhof could obtain this temporal use. Gerda MĂźnnich, a banking officer for her whole life, specialist in economics, informatics and computer networking since the early 60s, wanted to do exactly that: to transfer the same concept in her favourite hobby, to make a network of the over 20 pioneer projects, born in Berlin till 2010. Thus, she participated actively in the building of Allemende-Kontor experimental gardening space. The garden changed not only the networking between existing or releasing initiatives that were creating a new dynamism for the city in whole, but also the local scale land values and the character of the broader district, proving the importance of public space in the urban development processes. When airport was operating, 100.000 people inhabited the broader area, more than 50% immigrants, in very poor buildings. Afterwards, a gentrification process followed, the rents increased and it was not possible for these people to stay, not even to find other affordable districts in Berlin. During this transformation, the garden marked a new lifestyle bringing even richer people to inhabit the area.
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The garden project started on an unsuitable ground for cultivation (airfield, even dangerous mines from the II World War), without water or electricity, just as a space “with social, alternative, intercultural, ecological qualities, against to any kind of discriminations, a space for urban agriculture and good food growing”. The format was as Gerda described: “Spontaneous gardens in a sea of grass”. “We wanted to make a space like an example, a model, to show to the city of Berlin and to other cities how a community garden works, what actually is it” Even if it reminds more of a mosaic of individual micro – gardens, the common activities desccribe the sense of the place: workshops, meetings, sharing of knowledge, community plantings (ex. colored plants - plants giving / producing color), school garden, compost area or even bees. The result and the overall contribution in the evolution of the city is described by Gerda: “Tempelhof does not consist a park, but a free field. People wanted to do it by themselves. That was lacking from the city. It can be seen as a space for young, academic people from all over the world, as a space for the immigrants to obtain an identity and get integrated. It can be seen as a space for people in big cities to have a connection with the land. In this garden the diversity is more than in any other place. Every day we can see a new idea here. Here you can speak about Paradise, how the city can look like a Paradise. In the summer it is a beach, we lay and we see the sun. Any politician coming here and seeing it, said exactly that: it should remain as it is - the sun is perfect”. Gerda Münnich, Allemende-Kontor, Tempelhof, Oct. 2016
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Start of the project: Initiator: Area: State of Operation: Community Network: Partcipation Rules:
2008 Gerda Münnich along with 10 more gardeners of Berlin 5.000 sm in an airfield area of 330 hectares Community garden Over 300 gardeners, a space open to all 10 groups to organize the spontaneity, 10 colored flages for each group, 300 pots in total, 20-30 in each group, a low fee per year
Official Land Use: former airfield, belonging to the State of Berlin, saved from the urban development after a referendum where 739.124 people voted for Tempelhof to remain an open green space for the city Scope of Activities: gardening, community meetings, workshops, educational programs, recreation & sports in the broader area Number of employees: Revenues: funding programs, small fee per year, sustainable as everyone creates alone his/her“micro-garden” Interviewee: Gerda Münnich
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Die Gärtnerei, Neuköln
The story of Die Gärtnerei project starts with the agreement between the City of Berlin and the Church in 2006 to reduce the space of cemeteries within the urban cores to provide land for green infrastructures and development in the future. Under this concept a Church allowed and helped the installation of the community garden as a form of discussion and social integration for the mixed population’s neighbourhood. Thus, in March 2015 a bigger garden opened and two months later a space for meetings, kitchen, workshop classrooms and gathering was provided. With the aim to bring people not knowing each other & meet together, from around the neighbourhood, children & refugees, a lot of activities take place, in an idyllic landscape. 3 days a week there is a core team of refugees, while 4 days a week a German class, cooking and special events are taking place. Educational programs, artists’ workshops, tea & café, teaching between refugees and parties with the neighbourhood are part of the everyday life. With interesting urban interventions on site and do-ityourself workshops, the area is operating as an active ground for social and cultural experimentation. The vision for Die Gärtnerei is based on the fact that within the next 15 years the upper part of the cemetery will be provided for social housing projects for refugees. Under this context, several designs are in progress to define the role of the garden in this new urban environment presenting new forms of living together besides the common typology. “Die Gärtnerei has a potential to evolve in the future under the great social changes. There is a social ambition by the Church, not to make profit by selling the land. We are really lucky to be here in this cemetery” Sebastian Latz, Die Gärtnerei, Neuköln, Nov. 2016
Planning the evolution of the garden as “an alternative model of living together”, S. Latz TERRITORIES
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Projects like Die Gärtnerei describe a modern need even though there are not governemental programs to support this bottom-up initiatives. “With the aim to turn the ephemeral into permanent, the biggest challenge is how to get the funding, get the neighbourhood involved, create this atmosphere that make people take responsibilities in multiple layers of activities. The key point is to make people feel involved, make a space where people can feel that they can bring their own ideas and use the space as an experimental platform” Sebastian Latz, Die Gärtnerei, Neuköln, Nov. 2016
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Planning the evolution of the garden as “an alternative model of living together”, S. Latz
Start of the project: Initiators: Area: State of Operation:
2014 Schlesische 27, Jugend Kunst Kultur & Raumlabor Berlin 3.000 sm.within the space of an old cemetery Community garden and cultural space under the offer of the space by the Church, in the framework of its social policy for integration of the district’s mixed population Community Network: over 300 people, 60% immigrants, 2-4 volunteers/day, 10 people at lunch time - An open platform, an open space Partcipation Rules: Active participation in garden projects and workshops. No fees. No individual lots. Communal cultivation only Official Land Use: Cemetery Scope of Activities: Community kitchen, meetings, workshops, educational and artistic activities, german school, meetings, café, gardening, exhibitions Number of employees: 3 young employees in the field of architecture and design work Revenues: funding from Kulturstiftung des Bundes Interviewee: Sebastian Latz TERRITORIES
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“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” in Goethes Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1874), p. 520
Getting familiar with the “Diversity”:“Der Tiger Kommt In Den Garten” Artists: Tuna Arkun & Heather Purcellworking bi’bak, 14 October 2016 The presentation of the workshop “Der Tiger Kommt In Den Garten” that took place in a Weeding’s primary school during the summer vacations, aimed not only to reveal the children’s brainstorming around the forms of nature within the city but also to bring them together around a “common table”, as a consistent community. Thus, among the sketches of the different plants of Berlin’s Botanical Garden, the sketches form the Zoo, the animations produced by them creating imaginary stories and the photos from the creation of a small pocket garden, the event was organised around a common table, exhibiting and discussing the common experiences, sharing the first garden’s harvest, cooking together and playing around the traces of an invented urban nature. In the workshop’s concept “Tiger” represents the “other”, the “unknown”, sometimes the “stranger” as a parallism of the social diversity we meet in the metropolis. The “Tiger comes to the Garden” becomes the metaphor and the catchword to describe “garden” as the common, familiar space of the “others”.
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The “Newcomers”. A child citizen’s perspective: “QUIZ! Die Stadt als Rätsel” In collaboration with the artists: Petra Kubert, Eva Kietzmann & Axel Gerber bi’bak, 31 October - 4 November 2016 “Seeing has for the flaneur, as also for the artist or the detective, a cognitive function that is especially aimed at establishing irregularities” Walter Benjamin, 1903 as cited by Jongbloed, M., 2002
In QUIZ workshop the city was approached as “a mystery”. One class of 9 students from Karl Kraemer Grundschule in Wedding, 8-12 years old, born in Germany or recent refugees, from Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey or even Boulgaria, were called to explore and depict like a work of art, the urban landscape of the surrounding neighborhood. With the cameras on hands, they were left to walk in the city without orientation, without any map, with only guide their eyes and senses, what describes their perceiving capacity. They were called to capture whatever is impressing, strange, funny or surprising, whatever creates identity and a landmark on the urban ground. The dipole urban - rural, city and nature, built and open space was in the center of the discussion. In the classroom, during the “mind-mapping” exercise, the students were again oriented and were asked to create a plan of the urban landscape they experienced. With sketches, collages and speech they described “their own city”. If this exploration was the first step to understand and get familiar with metropolis, then re-imaging it could be a next, possible activity to build a community of active and concious citizens of the future, individuals that could take the role of urban designers, planners or maybe managers in the city of the future.
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Building the “Commons”: A Dinner In collaboration with the artist Julia Kapelle bi’bak, 12 November 2016 A “social dinner” is more than a process of eating together. The “dinner” was approached as a workshop forcing people from different cultures to share their differencies and similarities. A “diverse” dinner was the last action during this mini-project to underline the qualities of living together and building communities. Instead of tableclothes, long strips of papers covered the tables. Along with the spoons, black pens accompanied the crockery. Phrases in german, arabic and greek describing metaphors around food were written down just as stimulators for a discussion. Each partcipant could choose his own phrase and be guided to the appropriate table, along with different people. Then, the game began: drawings, words, schemes, shared memories and new friends was the result. Julia Kapelle animated some “products” of the dinner at: http://trixmix.tv/
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Sources Berlin Strategy: Urban Development Concept Berlin 2030, 2016. berlinbuilds, Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment Bianchetti, C., 2015. Crumbling Territories: Rules, Rights, and Values. In Bianchetti, C., Cogato Lanza, F., Kërçuku, A., Sampieri, A., Vaghera, A. (eds.), 2015. Territories in Crisis. Architecture and Urbanism Facing Changes in Europe, jovis Verlag GmbH, Berlin Capital: Debt, Territory, Utopia. Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin 2-6 November 2016 Clausen, M., 2013. Urban Gardens: Sowing the Cities of Tomorrow, SLUM Lab – Sustainable Living Urban Model, The Social Design Public Action Reader (8), URL: http:// prinzessinnengarten.net/wpcontent/uploads/2013/09/tomorrowsCities2.pdf [Accessed: 03/08/2015] Corner, J., 1999. Recovering Landscapes. Princeton Architectural Press, New York Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014) Ferguson, F., 2014. Make_Shift City : Renegotiating the Urban Commons, Die neuverhandlung des urbanen, jovis Verlag GmbH Gavriilidou E., Ritou M., 2016. A yard out of nothing: Building a common landscape experience and place-making in Kipos3 project, Thessaloniki. In Proceedings, “Growing in Cities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Gardening” International Conference, COSTAction 1201, Urban Allotment Gardens in European Cities, Basel 10-11.9.2016 Jongbloed, M., 2002, “Walking the City: Performance and Public Space”. In Lilienthal M., Köning K., 2002. I promise is political: Performativität in der Kunst / Performativity in art, Theater der Welt & Museum Ludwig, Köln Ring, K. (ed.), 2015. Urban Living: Strategies for the Future, jovis Verlag GmbH, Berlin Rosol, M., 2016. Community volunteering abd the neo-liberal production of urban green space. In Beebeejaun, Y. (ed.), 2016. Participatory City, jovis Verlag GmbH Van Zuylen, G., 1994. The Garden Visions of Paradise, Thames and Hudson: New Horizons
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A Diverse Landscape Where People Live The project is supported by “START – Create Cultural Change”, a program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, conducted in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the German Association of Sociocultural Centers, and it was presented in bi’bak, Berlin on the 13th of November 2016. Eleftheria Gavriilidou is an Architect and Landscape Architect from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece - elegvr@gmail.com