In-depth research of independent urban innovations in Berlin identified shared characteristics of the innovators and their practices. Key ingredients can be as simple as a vision for change, a drive to learn, along with the time and physical space to experiment.
The following content is based on research from my PhD Thesis. The full document can be viewed here.
Grassroots urban innovation in Berlin, Germany
Between 2012-2015 I explored Berlin’s unconventional spaces. I focused on the founders of the projects, the people that supported their vision and the enabling characteristics of the city. I chose five case study sites that were contrary to conventional urban development processes. The projects were not profit seeking and the protagonists sought to create something that met human needs and aspirations rather than simply realising the maximum exchange value of space. They were aligned with the broader maker, hacker and open source movements and elevated the human experience and societal impact over material gain or permanency.
The research findings underlined the critical importance of some key characteristics in the project drivers as well as their social and spatial context in Berlin. The lessons learned are poignant to anyone interested in undertaking or encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation.
A space and time
The urban space intervention case studies emerged from a context with the absence of capital and onerous governance. The period after the fall of the Berlin Wall saw an abundance of vacant space free from restrictions by landowners and authorities.
In addition, a number of contextual conditions were conducive to attracting innovators to Berlin and the consequential development of their urban innovations, including:
Berlin’s dense yet punctuated urban structure
A constant influx of young and creative residents
The emergence of countercultural and innovative urban clusters
Affordability
The city’s undercurrent of alternative living and protest cultures
The city’s famed identity as a ‘do-it-yourself’ mecca
The combination of Berlin’s urban and demographic characteristics, its subcultural milieu, coupled with a sizable inventory of free land and buildings provided an accommodating environment for urban innovation to take place.
All of the case study founders relocated to
Berlin during the post-Wall period. Free space, empty buildings and affordability enabled the pursuit of self-determined lifestyles and otherwise unviable work possibilities, eventually leading to the creation of the case study projects. The abundance of space that existed in Berlin and multitudes of actors pursuing their own projects and agendas was witnessed and experienced in the everyday life of the driving actors. They then pursued their own projects over a period of time, uncertain if they would succeed and how. Their agendas, means, experience and expertise were developed iteratively.
Social dimensions
The drivers of the case study projects had high levels of cultural capital. Cultural capital includes skills, knowledge, education, tastes, posture, clothing, mannerisms, material belongings, credentials and social networks dependent on one’s habitus i.e. disposition based on life experiences (Bourdieu, 1973,1984). Bourdieu propositioned that the more cultural capital one possesses the more powerful position and opportunities one has in social life.
All of the projects relied on social networks of like-minded individuals, which could not have been established without the driving actor’s own cultural capital. Founding Partner of ExRotaprint Daniela Brahm confirms (ExRotaprint, 2011: 24):
We have allied ourselves with architects who share our belief in open-minded urban development and a social city.
The Hegemonietempel protagonists commissioned their friend who is an architect to help realise their project (Tollmann, Interview, 2013). All of the case study protagonists had to develop new skills and knowledge to deliver their projects. But they were in a privileged position to be able to do so, as acknowledged by Vera Tollmann of Hegemonietempel (Tollmann, V. 2012. Correspondence 22 June 2012):
…I had quite a discussion with a friend, because she said I could not talk about DIY in this matter, because we were lucky to have money (even if little in comparison) to actually build the house. I guess I get her point, but I still think it’s always depending on the context if you are able to call something DIY or not - because it actually felt very DIY to do this (neither Christian nor me are architects, but our friend Christoph is), but I know we are privileged in comparison to migrants, and that was her point.
Previous professional occupations of all the case study protagonists were highly skilled but encompassed sectors and experience outside of those that would be considered first hand for the establishment of their projects. They were all formerly involved in artistic and creativity based occupations. Ferguson describes that actors of urban interventionist projects in Berlin have commonly been people from the “freikunstszene” or arts scene, people who are autodidacts and “bit by bit they become social entrepreneurs” (Ferguson, Interview, 2013).
Those driving interventions began the projects as novices. They were non-experts and acquired skills and knowledge as necessary through experimentation and experiential learning. A critical rejection of the status quo and aspects of their everyday lives drove their ambition to innovate and their innovation process. Through resourceful and nimble activities, solutions to the challenges they were experiencing or witnessing were able to be realised.
Innovation through ‘appropriation’
All of the case studies demonstrated that one must be in certain life circumstances to be able to critique and enact a vision that supersedes the status quo. In the words of Bertolt Brecht (2004: 67) “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral”, roughly translatable as ‘ethics come after hunger has been met’.
The driving actors were free to pursue innovation and risk failure with the case studies because they were a stratum of people that had choices about the way they could sustain themselves and meet their basic needs.
The actors appropriated themselves and aspects of their surroundings. This speaks to the concept of appropriation conceptualised by French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre. He proposed a process called appropriation to be a pathway to achieving a new type of spatial environment and social relations (1991 [1974], 2014 [1973]). This vision for an unprecedented user centric space created by and for urban inhabitants, was what he called differential space. Differential space is a somewhat utopian concept, but its extrapolation provides noteworthy parallels with thinking conducive to fostering innovation in people and places. Central to this is the notion that differential space's required process of appropriation involves making changes to current conditions in one’s environment as a result of self-reflexivity and critical thinking.
In Berlin innovations of spaces unfolded through processes that demonstrated elements of Lefebvre's concept of appropriation. Innovations emerged from a mix of social, spatial and temporal variables; Berlin’s context alongside central actors having space, time and visions driven by a rejection of the status quo and enabled by hands-on and experiential learning.
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RECHT, B. 2004. Die Dreigroschenoper: der Erstdruck 1928. Mit einem Kommentar hrsg. von Joachim Lucchesi, Suhrkamp; Frankfurt am Main.
BOURDIEU, P. 1973. Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. In: BROWN, R. (ed.) Knowledge, Education and Social Change: Papers in the Sociology of Education. Tavistock Publications; UK.
BOURDIEU, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University Press; Cambridge MA.
LEFEBVRE, H. 1991 [1974]. The Production of Space, Blackwell.
LEFEBVRE, H. 2014 [1973]. Toward and Architecture of Enjoyment, University of Minnesota Press; Minneapolis, USA.
*Case study founders images. Source: clockwise from top-left | Lomoth, M. 2011. Die Bio-Bauern von Kreuzberg. http://www.nationalgeographic.de/aktuelles/meldungen/die-bio-bauern-von-kreuzberg | Frey, T. 2016. 80 Konzerte in privaten Räumen. Berliner Woche Online 16.04.1024. | Moscow Urban Forum. 2016. Daniela Brahm. http://mosurbanforum.com/archive/forum_2012/speakers_2012/daniela_brahm_germany/ | Discuvry. 2014. FreeCuvry...it was damn real... https://discuvry.com | Videonale. 2009. Videokunst und Internet - Die Zukunft des bewegten Bildes http://v12.videonale.org/449.html
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