URBAN SPACE OF THE “BERLIN KREUZBERG” SITE H I S T O R I C A L C O N T E X T − I N T E R N AT I O N AL BUILDING EXHIBITION, THE SITUAT I O N A R O U N D 1980 It is important to note that “Berlin Kreuzberg” was located in the territory of West Berlin at the time of the division of Berlin. The city decided to address the problematic situation of Berlin’s dilapidated sites by announcing the International Building Exhibition 1984/87 (hereafter IBA) “in 1978, following a decision of the West Berlin House of Representatives” (Museum FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 2017). The key themes were the rediscovery and reconstruction of the historic inner city, largely destroyed by the war, and the theme of the ‘Berlin Wall’ area. (Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development undated) “A surprisingly large number of top architects from Europe and the United States were invited to contribute to a project combining urban renewal and public housing construction. The main area of the IBA was the Kreuzberg district − along the Berlin Wall, which was heavily bombed during World War II and then left to decay. Almost half of the population of the dilapidated Kreuzberg sometimes referred to as “German Harlem”, were citizens mostly from Turkey, and many of the residents were squatters who had moved illegally into abandoned buildings. Most of the migrants from Turkey came under the guest worker program, some were refugees after the Turkish coup and subsequent violence in 1980. Construction took place almost exclusively on land owned by the town. By 1989, the IBA had built 78
4,500 new flats in the ‘IBA-Neubau’ section under the leadership of Josef Paul Kleihues, renovated 5,000 existing flats and supported 700 self-help projects in the ‘IBA-Altbau’ section under the leadership of Hardt-Waltherr Hämer.” (Akcan 2018, p. 10) “ ‘IBA-Altbau’ was a response to the massive protests and housing shortages that had led to the illegal occupation and DIY repairs in the Kreuzberg district since 1979. The aim of ‘IBA-Altbau’ was to ‘save the broken city’ by carefully renovating and repurposing existing buildings.
