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Hier entsteht / here is being created.
Strategies for participative architecture and spatial appropriation

28th June to 12th July 2003


Construction experiment , exhibition, presentation series and open space for spontaneous settlement and unplanned activities in, around and on the pavilion of the Volksbühne at the Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin.

"In reality architecture is too important to be left to architects."
(Giancarlo DeCarlo, 1969)

"It is necessary to transform the "hyperpaternalistic" organisation in the field of architecture such as urban planning into a non-paternalistic organisation that meets the requirements of a large number of users."
(Yona Friedman, 1974)

"In the end we are dealing with the construction of the ideal city and with the trust that the current reality supplies us with the necessary elements - different to the conventional trust in the study field urban planning and the power of the state."
(Crimson, 1999)



Plateau for appropriation

A temporary projecting, extension and high-rise structure compresses the pavilion of the Volksbühne into a two level open platform that can be used for many things. "Hier entsteht/here is being created" a temporary discourse room for theories and practical forms of social participation in the decision-making process as well as self-organized appropriation in architecture and urban construction.

The construction experiment offers space for exhibitions, a reading room, a video cinema, a citizens' information and advisory office, lectures and discussion panels, but also space for unplanned and spontaneous activities. Possibly a garden, a club and a sun terrace will be created. Or a shower centre or a communal kitchen will be set up. To the attractive leisure time part one can count, apart from the "Flittchenbar/Tart bar" and other overqualified bar staff, the participative music project "Architecture and Morality" as well as the "Bühnen-Fernseh/Stage-television" night.

Social and intervening practical forms will be presented along with music, a load of information for critical urban dwellers will be made available and a city plan with which one can explore the participative Berlin will be prepared.


Programme for participation
The reference point, as far as the content is concerned, of "Hier entsteht/here is being created" will be a small exhibition that presents examples of architectural projects of the 1960s/1970s using models and plans. The comparison of these historical beginnings provides us with different social, spatial and technical perspectives. In lectures and talks possibilities for an open and participatory form of planning and putting this into practice nowadays will be discussed.

Guests, amongst others
Andrew Freear (Rural Studio, Alabama), Lucien Kroll (Brussels), Eckhart Ribbeck (TU Stuttgart), BKK-3 (Vienna), +RAMTV (Ljubljana / Nürnberg), Park Fiction (Hamburg), Oliver Fritz (KaisersRot, Zürich), Florian Böhm (Berlin), Georg Knacke (Berlin), Yvonne Doderer (Stuttgart) as well as a congress report on "Unlikely Encounters (in Urban Space)" with Sarai Media Lab (New Delhi), Ala Plastica (La Plata), Maclovio Rojas (Tijuana), Park Fiction (Hamburg) etc.

Project management:
Jesko Fezer, Mathias Heyden

Project team at the Universität der Künste / University of the Fine Arts, Berlin, Deptartment of Architecture:

Mariana Ahrens, Alexandra Correll, Thomas Cremers, Robert Friebe, Anita Kaspar, Tilman Körner, Tanja
Meyle, Tim Müller-Heidelberg, Franz von Reden, Henrik Schulte, Hans Weibel, Annkatrin Kirschner, Roland Züger
Projectassistence: Katja Reichard
Concept of music: Thomas André
Stage TV: Madeleine Bernstorff

Curators ErsatzStadt/SubstituteCity:
Jochen Becker, Stephan Lanz (metroZones)