Metropolitan Preoccupations: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin (RGS-IBG Book Series)

In this, the first book-length study of the cultural and political geography of squatting in Berlin, Alexander Vasudevan links the everyday practices of squatters in the city to wider and enduring questions about the relationship between space, culture, and protest. Focuses on the everyday and makeshift practices of squatters in their attempt to exist beyond dominant power relations and redefine what it means to live in the city Offers a fresh critical perspective that builds on recent debates about the "right to the city" and the role of grassroots activism in the making of alternative urbanisms Examines the implications of urban squatting for how we think, research and inhabit the city as a site of radical social transformation Challenges existing scholarship on the New Left in Germany by developing a critical geographical reading of the anti-authoritarian revolt and the complex geographies of connection and solidarity that emerged in its wake Draws on extensive field work conducted in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany Title page 10 Table of Contents 2 Series Editors’ Preface 13 List of Figures 14 Acknowledgements 16 Chapter One: Introduction: Making Radical Urban Politics 19 Spatialising the Anti-Authoritarian Revolt 25 The Squatted City 29 Towards a Spatial Grammar of Squatting 34 Chapter Two: Crisis and Critique 44 The Making of the Tenement City 47 Tenant Trouble: Rent Strikes in Weimar Berlin 52 Re-building a Divided City 57 Re-animating the ‘Housing Question’ 63 Chapter Three: Resistance and Autonomy 68 ‘The Berlin Commune’ 70 Performing the Political 76 From Protest to Occupation 82 Spatialising the New Left? 94 Chapter Four: Antagonism and Repair 100 “Wir wollen alles und wollen es jetzt”: Re-imagining Protest in 1970s Berlin 105 From Demolition to Occupation: Squatting the City 111 Making ‘Free Space’: The Material and Emotional Geographies of Squatting 123 From Resistance to Pacification: The Decline of the West Berlin Scene 140 Chapter Five: Separation and Renewal 150 Schwarzwohnen: An Alternative History of Housing in East Berlin 153 Occupying a Vacuum: Squatting after the Fall of the Berlin Wall 161 Postscript 175 Chapter Six: Capture and Experimentation 181 Squatting as Art: Performing Architectural Activism in the New Berlin 183 From Creativity to Experimentation 194 Reclaiming the Radical City 199 The Autonomous City? 209 Chapter Seven: Conclusion: “Der Kampf geht weiter” 214 References 226 Archives and Archival Collections 226 Magazines and Periodicals 226 Newspapers 226 Secondary Sources 227 Index 257 End User License Agreement 287