NO

MAN\S
LAND
AN ESSAY ON THE VOIDS OF BERLIN

Vlad Bodogan
130149170

INTRODUCTION

The following essay is a discussion about Berlin, about political ideologies,

homogenous semiotics and production of space. It wishes to argue the
importance of interstitial experiments in the urban fabric, by treating them
as counterproposals for the neoliberal, profit based urbanism. It will assume
Berlin as the playground for such initiatives and will present the relevance
of urbanism in the implementation of ideologies, the way Berlin was shaped
by an always changing power structure, the physical outcome of those
changes and why all these create an ideal terrain for alternative, resilient
practices to co-exist in the contemporary framework of the city. Through the
use of case studies, the essay will then argue on the different types of
action, their political resonance, and how is, the culture of spatial
reappropriation, maintained or promoted by them.

I.POLITICS

THE INHABITANTS AND THE INHABITED

In traditional systems, for example, subjectivity is manufactured by
machines that are more territorialised, on the scale of an ethnic group, a
professional association, or a caste. In the capitalistic system, however,
production is industrial and takes place on an international scale.1

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari describe deterritorialisation as being the loss of the relation with
the social, cultural and territorial identity; a decontextualisation which is always accompanied by a
deep semiotic transformation. Further, it is described as being of two types, relative or absolute. It
can be followed by a reterritorialisation into a different but yet dominant order or it can be followed
(or more commonly, caused) by a process of singularisation. In Molecular revolution in Brazil,
Guattari argues that the relative deterritorialisation is sustained by the machines for the production
of subjectivity which, in the case of capitalism, introduce a distance between man and his
environment. Following the idea presented above, it can be argued that subjectivity, as well as the
subject do not have an inborn structure and are in fact manufactured, distributed, received and
consumed.
What can be drawn from this is that the creation of a homogenised identity stays at the foundation
of every ideology, and thus, all production will either be facilitating or representative for the sociopolitical order. When looking at cities as manufactured entities, the developments which shaped
them throughout the recent history of modernism are always charged with high ideological
backgrounds. Coming back to the globalised machines of production which appeared in the late
19th and 20th century, it can be argued that the distance created between mans environment and
his territory of action plays an important role in understanding the contemporary image of the city.
By disconnecting the inhabitants from the inhabited, the urban realm has been mentally
transformed into a single object waiting for intervention2, becoming the stage for socio-political and
economic strategies. (fig. 1,2 and 3)
If the city is a stage, architecture and urbanism can be seen as the theatrical set which constructs
the spatial territory, directing, regulating or controlling the typology, level and intensity of action.
Therefore, urbanism tries to give the built environment an identity based on the hegemonic order,
and it has been proved throughout time to be a strong political tool. Maybe in Berlin more than
anywhere else can one see the strong relationship between the layers of the city and the
ideologies which informed them. Moreover, due to a lack of continuity in the urban plans, every
new political power brought its accompanying wave of destruction3. It can thus be argued that
Berlin, just like the subjects inhabiting it, has seen throughout the 19th and the 20th century a wave
of construction and destruction, new beginnings and forgotten pasts, desires of identification which
contrast the ones of Tabula Rasa. For a better understanding of the subject, an overview of the
contrasting urban developments during the last two centuries is necessary.

Flix Guattari and Suely Rolnik, Molecular revolution in Brazil, SEMIOTEXT(E) FOREIGN AGENTS SERIES,(Los Angeles:
Semiotext(e), 2007), pp.35
1

Kenny Cupers and Markus Miessen, Spaces of uncertainty, (Wuppertal:Mller + Busmann,2002), pp.59

Philipp OswaldRudolf Stegers, Berlin Stadt ohne Form, (Prestel, 2000), as cited in Cupers and Miessen, 2002

fig.1

fig.2

fig.3
fig.(1,2,3) Screenshots from They Live (1988)
When John Nada, the main character of John Carpenterputss film on the revealing glasses,
he is able to see all the products of ideology and their presence in our everyday life

THE CAPITAL OF IDEOLOGIES

Philipp Oswald compares Berlin with a text which tells its own story, and by doing so, it reflects on
the history of the 20th century4. It was the acting stage for the Modernist movement, the First and
Second World War, the fascist and totalitarian Nazi Germany, the Cold War, the fall of socialism,
capitalism and its contemporary bitter flavour, neoliberalism. It has a cumulative character imposed
onto it by the short lasting ideologies which sought the creation or reinvention of Berlins identity
and by doing so disrupted the preexisting development plans. The destructive evolution started
with the end of the 19th century when the Hobrecht-Plan (fig.4) was proposed and worked towards
elevating the city at its status as a capital. The urban development plan was similar in certain ways
with the one proposed by Baron Hoffmann in Paris but saw less destruction and more
consideration to the existing. Although it has not been completely finalised, large parts of the centre
have been destroyed to make space for large boulevards, squares and parks, contextualising it
within the western european framework. The introduction of train infrastructure, although brought a
higher level of mobility within the city, it also caused severe destruction within the urban
environment. The problem laid in the programming of the network, which was divided into eight
sub-networks, each owned by independent companies. For a maximum productivity and
economical efficiency these private investors have independently planned the most convenient
routes, many times insensitive to the preexisting buildings. Markus Miessen states that it was that
set of infrastructural decision which created an apparent sense of disorder in Berlins urban fabric.5
The 20th century brought new waves of political stands, plans, proposals and nonetheless
destruction. The Modernist movement - although not a political ideology - has had a powerful
impact on the city and through its strong ideological ambitions, it symbolically took a stand against
the past, wishing to rewrite the identity of a new, futurist Berlin. After the First World War Berlins
territory was expended (the Bauzoneplan) and automatically brought new infrastructural plans
which did not fully match with the ones initially presented by the Hobrecht-Plan (fig.5). During 1938
and 1942 the National Socialist regime put forward one of their most declarative urban proposals,
the Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania) which has not been completely finalised
but caused substantial destruction of old buildings which occupied sites of the project (fig.6). After
the Second World War, the urban realm was dispersed; the infrastructure was redundant, major
areas were covered in ruins (fig.7), some have been given back to the public and some towards
future architectural developments.
The Wall, a symbol of the Cold War and political tension existing in the second half of the 20th
century in Europe, divided Berlin into two ideologically different parts. Not only have there been a
differences between urban plans and ambitions for the social identity of each sides, but the two
have functioned autonomously for 28 years (fig.8). After the fall of the Wall in 1989, Berlin faced a
redundant double reality. Its infrastructural networks had to be connected, the once peripheral
territory around the borders needed integration in the urban fabric, and yet again, the german
capital faces urban tension (fig.9). Thus, Berlin is a city of the past and the present, it is a city with
no confined and well-structured character, a city with history but no strong tradition, it is a city
rebuilt on the city6 . The physical outcome is a landscape with scars, with peripheral looking areas
in the centre (revealing a non-hierarchical organisation), with vacant plots arranged in an unusual
layout which decomposes the structure of the city and allows for sudden changes to occur. One
can not get the grasp of Berlin by simply looking at a singular frame of reference but is forced to
discover it; being exposed to new, alternative perspectives, informal spatial occupation and
multiplicity (in contrast to urban homogeneity).

Philipp Oswalt,Berlin, City of the 20th Century, <http://www.oswalt.de/en/text/txt/berlin.html> [accessed 14 January 2016]

Kenny Cupers and Markus Miessen, Spaces of uncertainty, pp.66

Kenny Cupers and Markus Miessen, Spaces of uncertainty, pp.70

(fig.4) 1862 - Hobrecht-Plan

-improved the sewage system and the road
network
-caused destruction in the north of the capital

(fig.5) 1925 - Bauzoneplan

-the city expanded increasing its population
from 1.8 to 4 million people

(fig.6) 1938 - Welthauptstadt Germania

-initiated the construction of a N-S axis but was
never finalised
-caused severe destruction

(fig.7) Map of territorial destruction

-the dark blue represents the buildings which
were destroyed, the red the partially damaged
ones and the grey represents the undamaged

(fig.8) 1961-1989 - The Berlin Wall

-the area around the Wall was considered a nomans land. Nowadays it is peripheral looking
although very central

(fig.9) Contemporary Berlin

-the map shows the built environment in red
and the green spaces in green

THE VOID

There is an immediate reality offered to us by the society but falling into the
trap of reducing it to the most visible developments we will miss out on
many minor realities which are in the process of becoming 7
It has been argued that Berlin was not shaped by an organic urban development which would have
followed the natural maturation of the city but by a long series of short-term implied developments
which used the urban fabric as the stage for the implementation of new socio-political and
economic strategies. The effect on the physical environment represents the appearance of inbetween spaces which work as connectors between the different images of the city. They are
vacant, underused spaces; le terrain vague which allow experimentation, non-conformism and
disobedience to infiltrate in the very core of the city.
These voids are, from a sociological perspective, categorised as negative, unregulated, uncertain
spaces, contemporary examples of no mans land. And they truly are. There is no ideological
symbol represented within them, although products of an always changing power structure.
Berliners and tourists alike make use of them, by implementing temporary purposes and uses.
They are spaces for meeting, relaxing, gardening, socialising, promoting, displaying, performing,
partying; spaces which are free through their vacancy and detachment from homogeneity. If
buildings allow for the possibility to act or eliminate it8, the voids are purposeless spaces which
invite the interstitial experiments to emerge. They create opportunities and allow for the exodus to
co-exist. Doina Petrescu names this kind of spaces by using the term from the philosophy of
Deleuze and Guattari, vacuoles. They are spaces linked to the resistant and resilient society,
spaces where one can oppose oneself and from where a counter power can emerge.9
Another connection one could make is by looking at the concept of resistant political diagonals
presented by Antonio Negri. He describes the political diagram as the space where the production
of subjectivity takes place and, together with the machines of production, the reproduction of
organised life - social and political-, the circulation of money and the normalisation of life forms10 .
Within it (as opposed to being outside of it) there are several political diagonals which are defined
by the position one has in regard to the power relations: a resistant one which can then be
subdivided in several intersections, or a neutral one which allows for the bio-political exploitation to
manifest. Constantin Petcou makes the distinction between two main resistant diagonals determined by their levels and territory of action: one which captures the activists interested in the
political struggle on a rather global scale and one which captures the average inhabitants, who
through their actions takes responsibility to reshape and reinvent their immediate territory11. The
voids of Berlin are platforms for both the theory based and action based activism, creating the
ideal terrain for both experimentation and social resilience. This lead to the appearance of informal
living spaces, community gardens, temporary performance spaces, meeting spaces, public
artwork, skate parks, and other cultural as well as social driven spaces. (fig.10,11 and 12)

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, (3rd release, 2011, University of California), as cited in URBAN-ACT,2007, pg.316

Ludger Schwarte,Performative Architecture Setting a Stage for Political Action, <http://pavilionmagazine.org/ludger-schwarteperformative-architecture-setting-a-stage-for-political-action/> [accessed 10 January 2016]
8

10

11

atelier d'architecture autogre (aaa), URBAN ACT. A handbook for alternative practices, PEPRAV, (2007, Paris), pg.293
atelier d'architecture autogre (aaa), URBAN ACT. A handbook for alternative practices, pg.291
ibid.

fig.10 Wagenburg Lohnmhle, Grlitzer Park

fig.11 Friedrichshain

fig.12 Wagenburg

II.PRODUCTION

THE INTERSTITIAL EXPERIMENT

The neoliberal city functions as a platform for the promotion and enforcement of consumerism, with
many legislative and political decisions being informed by the right to private property, making it
particularly attractive to the consolidated capitalist actors such as multi-national companies and
corporations to transform our city into their city. Following this tendency, urban spaces become
privatised non-palpable entities and the public space behaves as a Fordist factory of capitalistic
subjectivity. The urban fabric is no longer a space for strolling, chatting and wandering and has
nothing more than a transitional and marketing purpose.
Interstitial experiments represent a critique of the neoliberal societal organisation and embody
counterproposals which can take place in the contemporary framework of the city. They are
assemblages which might be seen by the macro-society as utopias and usually take shape as
micro level practices which through their simple existence take a stand against privatisation, the
commercialisation of public space, consumerism and the homogenisation of culture. But as Pascal
Nicolas-le Strat argues, the interstitial experiments have nothing within their existence which could
protect them from wariness or institutionalisation (which would neutralise the and return to a given
order). What keeps them active is the fight for autonomy, the creativity and the maintenance of its
singularity.12 The issue of cooptation or sometimes being too open to the general public are the
threats to urban practices which work towards singularisation.
The project will last as long as it satisfies those involved in it and its success should not be
assessed on the fulfilment of a certain pre-established function, but on the processes it initiates
and the dynamic associated with it. It is thus temporality and the lack of a strict direction which
allows these spaces not to become places13 ; to invite action rather than activity. Berlin offers the
ideal terrain for such practices to take shape (fig.12). The spaces in between socialist apartment
blocks in the east, the underused areas around the Wall, on the fields which were once ruins and
have not been developed since, the creative community -but not only- took advantage of them and
by doing so, has created awareness around the issues of public space and the right to spatial
reappropriation.

12

atelier d'architecture autogre (aaa), URBAN ACT. A handbook for alternative practices, pg.315

Reference to Marc Augs concept of space and place. A space is characterised by the dynamic it encapsulates, by temporality,
openness and a loose definition. The place is created with a pre-designed function and is more rigid when it comes to the opportunities
which it creates.
13

fig.13
Areas under temporary use
based on the evaluation of research
on the 45 temporary projects listen in
URBAN PIONEERS, 2007

Lagen
Mauerstreifen
Baulcken von Grnderzeitquartier
Wasserwagen
Bahnanlagen
Grosiedlungen

RESILIENCE

One of the most vocal and large projects of participative urbanism is Tempelhof, an airport which
was built in 1927 and was later expanded and used by the National Socialist regime. After the end
of the Second World War its function was changed to a civilian one and functioned as such until
2008 when it was closed. In 2010 the airfield was opened to the public creating the biggest park in
Berlin (almost 370 hectares). Being situated at only 15 minutes away by bike from the city centre, it
quickly became a popular attraction for Berliners and tourists alike. The field itself suffered no kind
of intervention which could have dictated its function. Thus, it became a space for the expression
of the desire of unconventional acting which, for those living within dense urban neighbourhoods
would otherwise be hard to fulfil. People use the park in many ways; it is a space for leisure
(picnics, landscaping, gardening), sports (rollerblading, biking, stunt kiting, land surfing) and
culture (musicians, performances and debates). The most infrastructural intervention within the
open space is a biergarten -popular and present in most of Berlins parks- which, although
encompasses a pre-established function, was build in a temporary manner, allowing it to be
relocated, expanded or shrank.
From an administrative perspective, the park should have been used for further development which
would work towards the housing stock, one of the issues Berlin is facing. The plans were not
received well by the users, one of the main criticisms being the replacement of Tempelhof with a
properly landscaped park. If it was to happen, not only would the airfield lose its present character
but would also stop a working example of conceptual development which is seen as a positive
counterproposal for the profit driven urbanism. The different position taken by the people in
contrast with the Senate leat to a referendum in May 2014, to which almost half of Berlins voters
turned out. The results (18.8 % pro-development and 64% against) reveal the social importance of
bottom up urban interventions. They generate social responsibility and raise questions about who
is entitled to build on the public land, which is the future of Berlin and what does it mean for its
inhabitants.This kind of movements have encouraged round table discussions about public space
and generated projects such as Stadt neu denken (think your new city)14 as well as a legislative
implementation - Liegenschaftspolitik - which regulates and sets a certain standard for the social
value of new projects built on public sites.
Coming back to the concept of resistant political diagonals, one could argue that Tempelhof is a
space for the average inhabitant and its use, although created a political outcome, is an even
better example of resilient occupation. This kind of projects offer opportunities to the immediate
neighbourhoods, as Tempelhof did for Neuklln when different members of the community
established small, informal areas dedicated to gardening. This is one type of DIY urbanism. As it
was previously mentioned, they can also take a more experimental form and work towards the
exploration of different types of spatial occupation, the promotion of social involvement, the
appropriation of public space, for artistic and academic purposes or for the analysis of certain
societal issues. Further, I will present two different projects which take a more experimental stand;
the first one, Junipark will try to reveal the way such initiatives could enable marginal
demographics to formulate a political discourse and the second one, Camping Marianne, is an
experiment based on spatial appropriation and community involvement in the immediate territory.

14

Ethel Baraona Pohl, RE-SOURCING THE URBAN, <http://www.uncubemagazine.com/blog/15673595> [accessed 13 January 2016]

TEMPELHOF

EXPERIMENTATION

Junipark

Schlesische27, a youth, art and culture centre, organised a campaign entitled Wohwutt, which
addressed issues of housing availability for the young people of Berlin. The outcome was a survey
which reveals that almost 30% of the population in the age group 15 to 24 lives under the level of
poverty, making it particularly hard to live in the city, even in shared apartments. Junipark is a
project incorporating a temporary structure which takes upon the principles of participatory
urbanism to create an art and politics related intervention. The main purpose was to allow the
young participants to expose theirs concerns, ideas and opinions which would generate collective
proposals for the politics of Berlin.
The construction was based on scaffoldings and nets for reasons of flexibility and the constantly
changing internal content. The different programs of the building expend outside the actual
structure and wish to attract people from the neighbouring communities. They invite people to cook
and eat in the court, they organise workshops and create meeting spaces. Although it was not
intentionally planned, the project became a catalyst for creating and strengthening the nearby
neighbourhoods, with members of the communities using leftover materials to create a meeting
space, after the end Junipark.

Camping Marianne
What will happen if we say we will spend our holiday here? Who will come? What is going to
happen?15
Sommer Akademie was a project held between the 17th and the 21st of August 2015 in the open
yard of Nrtingen Primary School which has been transformed in a campsite. Although it is not an
occupation of the void - the space is used during school days -, the projects is a symbol of the
preexisting culture of spatial occupation which Berlin encompasses. Christof Mayer refers to the
initiative as being a performative research16 , which through a temporary experience would reveal a
different spatial understanding of the schoolyard. Moreover, it wishes to promote urban
appropriation and help the local community understand the meaning of public space, the
opportunities it offers and the action which can be taken within them.
Throughout the project residents, traders as well as institutions around Mariannenplatz have been
invited to take part in discussions, lectures and workshops as well as leisure activities such as
campfires, concerts, outdoors cinema and swimming. Thus, the experiment is a short term, try-out
of collective living and has a processual character in itself. It based on the rediscovery of the
communal city and it is both social and cultural, utopian and real17.

raumlaborberlin, CAMPING MARIANNE SOMMER AKADEMIE, <http://www.uncubemagazine.com/blog/15673595> [accessed 17

January 2016]
15

16

ibid.

Doina Petrescu, Losing control keeping desire, in Architecture and Participation, ed. by Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petrescu and
Jeremy Till, (London: Spon Press, 2005), pp. 43
17

JUNIPARK

CAMPING MARIANNE

CONCLUSION

Berlin, as argued above, has an identity based on the accumulation of past ideologies and the
destruction each of them brought. It caused an uneven city, based on several identities and images
which are tight together by the voids in-between them. Although it might initially seem chaotic, it
pushes one to discover new territories, new groups and assemblages which work on a micro-level
and not only co-exist within the bigger city but are part of its process of becoming heterogenous.
In conclusion, I would like to go back to Guattari, who argues that by going beyond the idea of
capitalistic omnipresence and omnipotence, one can face new ways of being, thinking, living and
coexisting18. Thus, the creation of counter proposals is essential in the process; it offers real and
accessible reinterpretations of the public life, it takes the utopian theory and makes it palpable.
Only in such ways can deterritorialisation occur and allow for the revolt against the capitalisation of
the urban fabric. Only in such ways can the inhabitants regain control over the inhabited.

Flix Guattari and Suely Rolnik, Molecular revolution in Brazil, SEMIOTEXT(E) FOREIGN AGENTS SERIES,(Los Angeles:
Semiotext(e), 2007), pp.65
18

BIBLIOGRAPHY
atelier d'architecture autogre (aaa), URBAN ACT. A handbook for alternative practices, PEPRAV, (2007,
Paris)
Cupers and Miessen, Spaces of uncertainty, (Wuppertal:Mller + Busmann,2002)
Guattari and Rolnik, Molecular revolution in Brazil, SEMIOTEXT(E) FOREIGN AGENTS SERIES,(Los
Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007)
Jones, Petrescu and Till, Losing control keeping desire, in Architecture and Participation, ed. by, (London:
Spon Press, 2005)
Oswald P.,Berlin, City of the 20th Century, <http://www.oswalt.de/en/text/txt/berlin.html> [accessed 14
January 2016]
Pohl, Ethel Baraona, RE-SOURCING THE URBAN, <http://www.uncubemagazine.com/blog/15673595>
Schwarte L,Performative Architecture Setting a Stage for Political Action, <http://pavilionmagazine.org/
ludger-schwarte-performative-architecture-setting-a-stage-for-political-action/> [accessed 10 January 2016]

IMAGE REFERENCE
fig 1-3 screen shots from They live, John Carpenterputs, 1988
fig 4-9 Berliner Plne 1862 bis 1994,<http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/fnp/de/historie>
[accessed 20 January 2016]
fig 10-12 Kenny Cupers and Markus Miessen, Spaces of uncertainty
fig.13 Senatsverwaltung fur Stadtentwicklung Berlin, Urban Pioneers, (Jovis,Berlin: 2007)
pictures Tempelhof Berlin-Tempelhof: A Former Airport Becomes a Blank Slate for Urban Outdoor Life
<http://www.newpublicdomain.com/2011/06/berlin-tempelhof-former-airport-becomes.html>
pictures Junipark raumlaborberlin <http://raumlabor.net/junipark/>
pictures Camping Marianne raumlaborberlin <http://raumlabor.net/camping-marianne-sommerakademie/>