Mehringplatz - Südliche Friedrichstadt - Berlin

The Südliche Friedrichstadt of Berlin presents an emblematic case of regeneration processes where the conflicted story of the divided city is remastered into a new creative but socially inclusive mixed neighbourhood. Situated in a very central location of the city, once the periphery of West Berlin close to Checkpoint Charlie, its unclassifiable mix of incongruent elements and landscapes results in a quintessential Berliner place, embodying all the contradictions and contaminations that make up this city’s identity. Since the reunification, its urban identity centred around a huge modernist social housing settlement is redefined by a complex conjunction of public policies, social initiatives and market pressures. Such forces and visions are amalgamated by a vocation to creativity and cultural industries historically connected with the presence in the surrounding areas of art galleries, museums and the media quarter of Berlin. Today the former social hosing settlements conceived by Hans Scharoun in the Sixties is subject to rapid transformation, urban development pressure, colonisation by creative industries and latent gentrification.

Tesserae is running an observatory on this area since 2015. Mehringplatz and the surrounding Sanierungsgebiet Südliche Friedrichstadt were selected as target area for the Erasmus plus project EULER, for which we developed training program Switch On Mehringplatz . The purpose of the laboratory was to develop tools for local initiatives, creating an atlas of social resources for Mehringplatz. Successively we adopted the area as case study for the H2020 Rise project CoCreation, analysing the ambivalent role of creativity as a means for engagement and resistance and promoting gentrification. With the Erasmus plus projects URBEX and COMENSI we further developed contents cocreated with local inhabitants and tested the neighbourhood atlas prototype.

NEWS

Mehringplatz storylab #2 – Place narrative

Mehringplatz maplab #2 – Mapping actors and economies

Strategies for change

Mehringplatz maplap #3 – Connecting layers

Mehringplatz stroylab #3 – Collecting stories

Mehringplatz storylab #4 – Urban sketches

Urlab #4 – Representing the neighbourhood

Switch on Mehringplatz 30.11.2017 @ Bauhutte

Mehringplatz anknipsen 2 – Nachbarschaftsatlas

Neighbourhood atlas at Gedenkbibliothek

Transformationen – Nachbarschaftsatlas im Feldfünf