Abstract
Located at a former train depot, today ZK/U (Centre for Arts and Urbanistics) is progressively becoming a creative catalyst in Berlin. The goal of this chapter is to explore the processes by which derelict sites are repurposed as new cultural landmarks though minimal, DIY architectural interventions, retaining ruined materiality as an aesthetic value. To bridge the gap between scholarship and the arts, the authors opted for elaborating a photo-comic, and thus, methodology relied on fieldnotes, photos and interviews to grasp the motivations and commitments enabling life within ZK/U and the surrounding Moabit City Garden. Framed by architecture, urban studies, human geography and critical heritage, this chapter builds on ZK/U’s collaborative and open-minded spirit.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the people who participated in this research as interviewees: Matthias Einhoff, Ella Ponizovsky, Jan Körbers, Gelaal Zaher and Ali Reza. Our gratitude is extended to every single fellow resident and office worker at ZK/U, who made our stay truly interesting and enjoyable—and to the architecture studio ‘Peter Grundmann Architekten’ for granting permission to reproduce two of their images advancing the future of the building. We owe a great debt to Hayden Lorimer, Lazaros Karaliotas and Alfredo González-Ruibal for their insights. Shout out to the ‘Distinct Inside’ team, Ivana Dilova and Michael Hazell, for the common explorations of Moabit and the critical edge by our ‘what’s cool, what not’ considerations. Last but not least, special thanks to the organizers of the conference ‘Cutural Commons and Urban Dynamics: a new economic paradigm for a complex social map’, held in October 2019 in Catanzaro Lido (Italy), where a first draft of this paper was presented.
Funding
This work has been possible due to the funding granted by the Urban Studies Foundation in the form of a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship awarded to Pablo Arboleda.
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Arboleda, P., Jankiewicz, P. (2020). Berlin, a Repurposed Ruin, and Constant Change as the Fixed Condition: A Photo-Comic. In: Macrì, E., Morea, V., Trimarchi, M. (eds) Cultural Commons and Urban Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54418-8_21
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