Architecture and the “Right to the City”: The IBA Hamburg as a Case for Critical Urban Studies

Abstract

The “International Building Exhibition” (IBA) is a format of German architecture, which has been widely awarded as contributing to a wider social agenda. In Hamburg, the IBA was initiated to overcome the traditional divide between the poorer South and wealthier North of the city. Aiming at both built and social improvements, the IBA was set up in the deprived area of Wilhelmsburg. Questions arose, however, about whether the IBA is an appropriate instrument in a fragmented city, where gentrification has deepened social inequalities. A vivid “right to the city”-movement has established itself in Hamburg and also criticized the IBA. In this chapter, the IBA Hamburg will be used as an example to discuss the profound relationship between architecture and urban society in times of increasing social fragmentation. First, the context of the IBA and the “right to the city”-movement will be introduced. Then, the impact of the IBA on the particular case of Wilhelmsburg and Hamburg, with respect to its social geography, will be studied. This chapter will deconstruct the perspectives that architects of the IBA, as well as their critics, have on the city. It will thereby show that the ongoing social fragmentation of the city is disregarded in the programmatic realization of the IBA concept and by its intellectual rhetoric. The analysis will show that this incompatibility between architecture and social science is no longer a product of disciplinary logics but has lost its relevance due to the emergence of a new narrative on planning and society.