ALAMAR, CUBA

A new city built built by its inhabitants

Today Alamar has a population of about 100,000. In 2006 with the ogino:knauss collective we visited the place realising a work for the La Habana Art Biennial. This work resulted in a film, inaugurating the Re-centering Periphery project. Doble Forza documents everyday life occurring in public space between repetitive and anonymous tenements, transforming and appropriating the huge empty lots left by an unfinished urbanization, and testimonies advantages and defects of the participative construction process. It mixes the inhabitant’s voices with impressions captured drifting in the urban landscape.


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RAW-GELÄNDE FRIEDRICHSHAIN

RAW-GELÄNDE FRIEDRICHSHAIN

A Prussian railway workshop, a Cold War industrial wasteland, a contemporary socio-cultural center in the heart of Berlin Friedrichshain. The area is emblematic of collective and informal processes of creative transfomation reinventing Berlin’s urban landscape. The R.A.W. in Berlin-Friedrichshain was originally serving as a railway workshop in the XIX century. After being damaged during World War II and undergoing various transformations, it became a neglected wasteland in post-unification Berlin. In 1999, the RAW-Tempel association repurposed the site for artistic and cultural activities, aiming to create a vibrant hub for creativity and community engagement. In 2015, the Kurth Group acquired ownership of R.A.W. and recognized its potential for investment and urban development. Unlike other financial actors, the new owner aimed to respect the site’s identity and socio-cultural programs, giving long-term residents more control over their pre-existing properties. Establishing a participatory approach to urban planning, new plans for the R.A.W. Tower, a 100-meter-tall building, was set to be constructed starting in 2024. The project is intended to blend with older activities, integrating new offices, green areas, markets, and other services, with the R.A.W.’s role as a cultural institution. However, concerns about power dynamics and possible future compromises between top and bottom interests revolving around the R.A.W. might still challenge the current collaborations between the community and external investors.  

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