All Things Urban

1968, a year marked by social upheaval in midst of a period of productive unrest, has influenced many aspects of how we live together in our cities up until today. The year also marked a paradigm shift for urban development, housing politics, and architectural practice that still can be recognised in Berlin’s urban fabric today. This city walk traces multiple trajectories of the legacy of 1968 and the Diagnose exhibition in the districts of Kreuzberg SO 36 and Mitte over the following decades. In the 1970s, protests against modernist large-scale housing developments, the massive demolition of old building stock, and housing shortages led to new tactics and approaches to urban development such as “Instand(be)setzungen” and the competition “Strategies for Kreuzberg”. These efforts found their continuation in the 1980s in approaches of “careful urban renewal” as well as the International Building Exhibition (IBA 84/87). The massive critiques on modernist top down master planning, inner city highways, and urban regeneration by bulldozing whole city quarters have fuelled approaches of more participatory urban planning and a democratisation of urban development. On the city walk, we critically reflect on what we can still identify from these achievements in the contemporary urban fabric, which policies have been implemented, and how neoliberal restructuring and the financialisation of the housing market have counteracted these developments.

POLIGONAL organizes exploratory scholar-led tours for city aficionados and architecture lovers through the city of Berlin.