About six­teen years ago, two skaters found a plot of fal­low land in Hanover-Linden’s indus­tri­al area. They start to clean up and build a small skate park. In 2009, they form an asso­ci­a­tion, nego­ti­ate an inter­im use con­tract with the own­er togeth­er with the city council’s sup­port, and reach a lease agree­ment for one euro per year, which is still valid today. In 2013, anoth­er asso­ci­a­tion is cre­at­ed: Platzpro­jekt aims to cre­ate a space for ini­tia­tives, a place for self-help, for mutu­al sup­port offer­ing knowl­edge, tools, and crafts­man­ship. Research funds and state sub­si­dies enable the estab­lish­ment of long-term par­tic­i­pa­tion struc­tures for young peo­ple who want to dis­cuss their cities in self-orga­nized spaces and active­ly shape them.

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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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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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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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South of Lis­bon, in the hin­ter­land of hotels and apart­ment com­plex­es, is the not yet legal­ized Ter­ras da Cos­ta quar­ter. In 2012, the idea of set­ting up a com­mu­nal kitchen was born in the neigh­bor­hood. Their pro­pos­al was tied to hopes that author­i­ties would agree to install a water sup­ply and there­by start the legal­iza­tion process of the set­tle­ment. The archi­tec­tur­al office ate­lier­mob and many oth­er groups, ini­tia­tives, and indi­vid­u­als sup­port­ed this ambi­tion in var­i­ous ways. Some con­tributed their work direct­ly, oth­ers posi­tioned them­selves in sol­i­dar­i­ty, and foun­da­tions fund­ed the project. After about two years, water final­ly flowed to Ter­ras da Cos­ta. But many oth­er aspects remained unre­solved or have not been decid­ed polit­i­cal­ly, so that set­tle­ments in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions have to con­tin­ue the fight for their rights to the city.

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The works of con­struct­Lab unfold in the cos­mos between imag­i­na­tion and life. But the focus of the collective’s work is not on cre­at­ing fixed and unal­ter­able facts. Instead, they active­ly seek ways to give form to the desires and hopes expressed in appro­pri­a­tions. The Baukiosk takes on the role of a sym­bol in this con­text. As a com­plex struc­ture, it embod­ies a par­tic­u­lar form of city-mak­ing that combines—or delib­er­ate­ly collides—differing inter­ests with dif­fer­ent oppor­tu­ni­ties. Thus, the kiosk is a meet­ing place as well as a col­lec­tion point. Ana­log bill­board and dig­i­tal dis­play. Infor­ma­tion sys­tem and rest­ing point. It is always many things and every­thing at once.

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When Yuriy Fylyuk and his friends moved from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk in the sum­mer of 2008, they found a place with scarci­ties of all sorts. Out of this, Teple Mis­to or Warm City emerged—a net­work that today includes around six­ty local com­pa­nies. A restau­rant became one of the plat­forms for the group’s activ­i­ties and serves as a place for meet­ing as well as exchange. One hun­dred peo­ple par­tic­i­pate as co-financiers in the Urban Space 100 project. Since 2015, parts of the restaurant’s prof­its have gone into a pot that finances and sup­ports ini­tia­tives, small and larg­er projects. The mon­ey col­lect­ed in this way has already been used to restore his­toric build­ing entrances, pro­cure com­put­ers for med­ical facil­i­ties, and orga­nize sport­ing events and festivals.

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