Forgotten for almost a decade, the complex of buildings that once constituted the offices for the administration of statistics under the old socialist regime came to the center of the public discourse as a symbol of an across-the-board struggle for the right to the city of Berlin. Civic society actors and public stakeholders joined their efforts to put the unconditional selling of publicly-owned buildings to a halt, stressing the need to replace the monetary principle with the pursuing of the societal common good. The professionalization of bottom-up forms of activism claiming space for culture and diversity transformed the Haus der Statistik initiative into a large-scale project. This currently aims at regenerating the buildings to benefit local neighborhoods, refugees and cultural producers alike through the implementation of participatory practices of urban development.
WHERE AND WHEN? Mildmay, Islington, London, UK. From 2018. Involvement in the Comensi project. WHAT’S GOING ON? Mildmay has recently become a preferential target for real estate investment, and it has seen a rapid increase in the number of affluent peope decidig to move in the ward. The new inbalance between housing supply and demand has broght […]