In Barcelona, the idea of the superblock—an urban area made up of sev­er­al small­er city blocks and bor­dered by large streets—has been rein­vent­ed in recent years. It promis­es solu­tions for cities with high emis­sion lev­els caused by motor­ized vehi­cles. The reduc­tion of traf­fic means that the val­ue of pub­lic spaces increas­es or that a space becomes tru­ly pub­lic for the first time, and exist­ing uses are increased or new ones made pos­si­ble. Six such superblocks have been real­ized in Barcelona to date. Fears that the retail trade would suf­fer as a result of reduced access for cars have not come true. Instead, the num­ber of trips made on foot or by bicy­cle have gone up and the air qual­i­ty has improved. In recent years, oth­er cities have also begun to imple­ment the mod­el since its poten­tial becomes appar­ent every­where when you look at the city from the per­spec­tive of those who walk instead of drive.

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Prison reforms, fair nation­al bud­gets, jus­tice for immi­grants, the appro­pri­ate deter­mi­na­tion of tax bur­dens, the erad­i­ca­tion of racial seg­re­ga­tion in schools, the fight against cor­rup­tion, or the ques­tion­ing of police sur­veil­lance of the broad public—all of these are top­ics for the Cen­tre for Artis­tic Activism (C4AA). What is unique in their work is the com­bi­na­tion of art meth­ods and for­mats with social move­ments. In work­shops, sem­i­nars, sum­mer acad­e­mies, and oth­er pro­grams, they dis­cuss the motives and work­ing meth­ods of dif­fer­ent groups togeth­er with artists and peo­ple who are pri­mar­i­ly active in social move­ments. This is intend­ed to sharp­en demands and orga­nize actions in a more direct­ed man­ner. Every­thing else, accord­ing to the founders of the orga­ni­za­tion, would be an unfor­giv­able strate­gic mistake.

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In the works of Matthias Wermke and Mis­cha Leinkauf, every­day sit­u­a­tions, prac­tices, and reg­u­la­tions are play­ful­ly, almost inci­den­tal­ly, ques­tioned. The swing, which appeared at var­i­ous loca­tions in Berlin and then moved on again, hung from street signs, scaf­fold­ing, and struc­tur­al ele­ments. It con­tin­u­ous­ly appro­pri­at­ed small parts of the sur­round­ing com­mer­cial­ized and pri­va­tized city, mak­ing them its own. For just a moment, how­ev­er brief, a new (pub­lic) space came into being—where there pre­vi­ous­ly was none. By occu­py­ing squares, nich­es, sites, and objects that nor­mal­ly serve oth­er func­tions, it recon­quered the city gen­tly and qui­et­ly, but no less emphat­i­cal­ly. Thus, the mobile swing can be read as a warn­ing. Because if pub­lic space dis­ap­peared com­plete­ly, will every­one who wants to swing have to bring their own swing with them?

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The Chor der Sta­tis­tik was brought to life in 2019 by musi­cian Bernadette La Hengst and exper­i­men­tal archi­tec­ture col­lec­tive raum­labor­ber­lin. An open call attract­ed peo­ple who want­ed to sing about the chal­lenges of urban devel­op­ment process­es. The spe­cif­ic rea­son for the choir’s ini­ti­a­tion is the ongo­ing trans­for­ma­tion of the long-emp­ty Haus der Sta­tis­tik in Berlin. The joint­ly devel­oped songs raise ques­tions, address fears, and for­mu­late demands. And so, the choir sings about dis­place­ment and the right to the city, it artic­u­lates prob­lems around rent increas­es and the pri­va­ti­za­tion of space. Singing togeth­er and pub­lic appear­ances are equal­ly protest and demon­stra­tion at the same time. »For a bet­ter future,« says the choir direc­tor, rais­ing her baton.

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While it is usu­al­ly only polit­i­cal and munic­i­pal deci­sion-mak­ers who sit around the table to decide on urban plan­ning projects, the games cre­at­ed by the Play the City agency bring var­i­ous groups and play­ers togeth­er: employ­ees of city admin­is­tra­tions, neigh­bor­hood res­i­dents, local busi­ness own­ers, ini­tia­tives, but also rep­re­sen­ta­tives of real estate com­pa­nies, archi­tec­ture offices, and many more. Every­one should par­take in the dis­cus­sion and deci­sions. At least, that is the great premise of the game. It should be played in the run-up to large-scale con­struc­tion and urban devel­op­ment projects, say those who devel­op the game to suit local con­texts, to expe­dite con­sen­sus build­ing, sup­port deci­sion mak­ing, and resolve conflicts.

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Skate­board­ing is a per­for­ma­tive cri­tique of the con­struct­ed world, some say. This still rel­a­tive­ly young sport, whose main set­tings were and are urban non-places, devel­ops new under­stand­ings and oth­er inter­pre­ta­tions of space. This world—whether gigan­tic infra­struc­tures, side­walks, emp­ty swim­ming pools, enor­mous house-lined streets, tun­nels, or oth­er con­crete deserts of the mod­ern age—is revealed by pho­tog­ra­ph­er and skater Rubén Dario Kleimeer in his images. Kleimeer unlocks mul­ti-lay­ered mean­ings of space through the nav­i­ga­tion and appro­pri­a­tion of built struc­tures. In doing so, he is not look­ing for answers or solu­tions to urban plan­ning or social prob­lems. Instead, he invites us to search with him, ride with him, and then think together—from unfa­mil­iar perspectives—about what the city of the future could look like, what it could be, and how it could be navigated.

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Artist Jeppe Hein mod­i­fies con­ven­tion­al park bench­es. As a result, sit­ting, along with all oth­er activ­i­ties that nor­mal­ly take place on park bench­es, is often made almost impos­si­ble. Because the altered park bench­es have kinked sur­faces. Some­times the seat­ing area is miss­ing. Some bench­es have such long legs that you would need a lad­der to sit on them. How­ev­er, oth­ers are usable or even more use­ful than con­ven­tion­al bench­es, for exam­ple, if they enable a con­ver­sa­tion with eye con­tact. Still oth­ers invite com­par­isons to play­ground equip­ment. As a result, the mod­i­fied forms of the ordi­nary park bench insti­gate dis­cus­sions and con­ver­sa­tions about the design of pub­lic space. Also, about for what and for whom pub­lic space is, or should be, designed.

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The Mobile Zebra Cross­ing is a portable device that can be deployed when encoun­ter­ing unwieldy street sit­u­a­tions. Its pur­pose is to make it easy for pedes­tri­ans to tra­verse in places where there are no legal cross­ing options. How­ev­er, because of the size and cor­re­spond­ing weight of the car­pet-cross­ing, it can­not be used by one per­son alone. It takes many who must be will­ing to car­ry and roll. The cross­ing of an oth­er­wise uncross­able street con­se­quen­tial­ly becomes a col­lec­tive action, a kind of protest march. While this arti­fact may seem play­ful, it also points to the stub­born­ly per­sis­tent seg­re­ga­tion of var­i­ous groups in urban space. Cel­e­brat­ing the most sus­tain­able of all modes of trans­porta­tion, the Mobile Zebra Cross­ing engages in ques­tions about how a just city for pedes­tri­ans might look.

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Even if Min­istry of Space sounds quite offi­cial, it is not a state-run min­istry. Con­cealed behind the name is a small group of activists com­mit­ted to social jus­tice. Thus, the group fights for a city that ben­e­fits all those who live there. They fight against cor­rupt prac­tices, the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of pub­lic mon­ey, and—as they argue—abuses of pow­er by polit­i­cal play­ers. In this way, the activists mon­i­tor, ana­lyze, and crit­i­cal­ly com­ment upon large-scale urban devel­op­ment projects by transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic assets. They scru­ti­nize the con­struc­tion of lux­u­ry res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties or shop­ping cen­ters. Through their work, the group thus sup­ports a broad protest cul­ture that demands civ­il soci­ety inclu­sion in urban pol­i­cy events.

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The Wek­er­le estate in the south­east of Budapest has been part of the world­wide Tran­si­tion Town Net­work for sev­er­al years, which address­es the glob­al chal­lenges of the cli­mate emer­gency and devel­ops prac­tices for local pro­duc­tion as well as re-use. Alter­na­tive ener­gy con­cepts are devel­oped, food sov­er­eign­ty is cre­at­ed, sus­tain­able con­struc­tion and emis­sion-free mobil­i­ty are pro­mot­ed. In Wek­er­le, par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is placed on com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed agri­cul­ture, organ­ic hor­ti­cul­ture is pro­mot­ed through cours­es, seeds of local veg­etable vari­eties are trad­ed on exchange plat­forms, and com­post is sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly col­lect­ed. The local gov­ern­ment has rec­og­nized this approach’s poten­tial and sup­ports it—despite some resistance—with mate­r­i­al and finan­cial resources. And so, a com­mu­ni­ty house has been built, a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den laid out, and the mar­ket place redesigned.

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