City Culture: Abandoned spaces

7/25/2019 City Culture: Abandoned spaces

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Tacheles and the transformation of space.

How a ruin turns into a landmark for capitalist

purposes?

SILVIA ROMANO REDONDOs. Number: s44002752963 words.


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Tacheles and the transformation of space.

How a ruin turns into a landmark for capitalist purposes.

INTRODUCTION

Tacheles is an emblematic building in Berlin well known all around the world.

After twenty-two years of continuous art movement, this ruin is going to be

converted in business and apartments, curiously ending similar to its building

one century ago, considering that it emerged as a big mall. In this essay Im

trying to analyse how a space can change gradually taking shape of different

places. Im going to explain how a ruin could achieve much popularity with

social practices and how capitalism takes advantage of this new conceived

space.

Introduction to the history about Tacheles

Tacheles Kunsthalle or art-house, is a large space destined for art

where many artists not only showed and sold their artworks, also worked in,

becoming that a collective studio for the past 22 years. The building where they

were located was an abandoned wreck of a shopping centre situated on the

Oranienburger Strasse.

The history of the building started with the ruin of the mall when it was

abandoned for first time. After being used by the Free German Trade UnionFederation (FDGB) it returned of being uninhabited over the course of the next

several years. And because of this deterioration the building was partially

demolished until the arrival of the group Knstlerinitative Tacheles, on February

13, 1990, when they occupied the building in order to save it as a historic

landmark.

After some disagreements the artists achieved to stay legally from 1998

to 2009 thanks of the purchase of the developer Fundus Group that gave the


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artists a lease in at a nominal rent of 50 cents. However with the end of this

contract they became squatters of the building, only the half of the space was

used the last years and little by little some artists were abandoning the building

until 2012, when they were expelled from the building.

In the XXI century the building was known everywhere, most of the magazines

related with tourism, art, fashion, architecture or even newspapers had an

article destined to this house making it known and talking positively about it. It

was consecrated as a landmark for the bohemian atmosphere of the city and

the social and aesthetic German activism.

After this summary of the history of the building you will be able to understand

some of the reasons why this space turned into a political and controversial

space.

TACHELES AS A SPACE vs. PLACE

Tacheles became popular as a cultural and artistic place but nowadays it is

seen dominated for the capitalist forces. With the domination of this space the

place is destroyed. Thinking about that I ask how this has happened and how a

space comes of interesting for capitalism. In order to discover that, first Ill try to


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analyse how emerges a place and what shape it and after how capitalism

affects this construction of space.

First of all I want to clarify that in this case study the forces of the capitalism are

represented by the old and the new owner of the building and the Bank which

was given the loan to the artists.

The fact that capitalism controls a space is decisive for the change of a place.

However in this case is more determiner being Tacheles a place which worked

out of the rules of the capitalist social space. Capitalism symbolizes the

opposite of freedom and equality, exactly what the artists looked for in

Tacheles. These are some of the ideals which converted this in a landmark

where people felt in a utopic place for those who looked for freedom of thought

and expression.

However a place is not establish only with the ideals and the imaginary, it is

constructed based in a dynamic process of continuous change and periods of

stability. Every artist was offering his paintings, his music or the artwork they

wanted to create, being each graffiti, every sculpture or song a small decisive

part for the gradually whole it was. In a place anything is there by chance even

talking of a place where everything could seem as accidentally fallen there.

Each small movement, appearance or object is thought for staying there and

take part of the whole experience. Nevertheless not all the components of a

place have to represent a specific meaning but everything unconsciously

symbolize something for the internal world of human perceptions. Everyone

creates in their mental space a representation of the spaces they are, emerging

this duality between subjective and objective world, which depends directly of

our perception of the space. Without going out of our case study we could

exemplify this idea saying that for instance graffiti could have some different

connotations from underground, artistic expression to dirt, or vulgarity.

Lefebvre was one of the authors who have analysed this subjectivity in the

realm of space, differentiating between place and space and three kinds of

spaces: conceived, lived and perceived space. I want to use these terms

applying them in the analysis of Tacheles as a special place where we canshape this imaginary spaces through real cases.


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The idea of Tacheles and what does it mean has converted into a place without

space. Now that the artists are out of their studios they will look for space. But

without this specific space where the place was born, this never could be the

same. However I think about if itspossible to reproduce a place with the same

meanings and connotations like it was before but in a different space. I dont

think is only the building what have been determining for the establishment of

this place, however what is clear is that the location and the building itself have

influenced the way artists converged and found the link for creating this

characteristic area. And even after their demolition for building apartments, the

meanings of the old ruin will continue inherent of the space with nostalgia of the

old structure.

The first step of the research connecting the Lefebvre ideas with this landmark

could be analysing it throughout the representations of the space. Tacheles was

conceptualized by the artists sometime after their settlement in the building

when they realised of what they had built with their everyday practices. What

happened in this case is that a lived space turned into a conceive space with

the efforts of the artists of maintaining the original appearance of the building. In

the moment they perceived that the spatial practices accomplished in a space

with his corresponding meanings around the symbols and images were

establishing and taking fame becoming be known all around the world, they

could have been planning the conservation of this space and convert it a

conceived space constructed by the own artists who wanted to take advantage


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of what had emerged as something unorganized. They could have cleaned

every square of the building or taken care of the appearance of the walls,

however the fact of neglecting this cares forms part of this constructed space.

The building is conceived as a ruin because they planned to be like this.

We can divide the life of Tacheles in two phases. In its first period the artists

behaved as free users of the space, adapting their practices of what they need

and what they wanted to express in that moment. The way they occupied and

lived in the space answer to the patterns of some models of urbanism as the

ones achieved by some pioneers anarchists like Howard, Geddes or The

Regional Planning Association of Americai. They defended a society based in

the voluntary cooperation throughout small communities governed by theparticipants belonging to them. Tacheles could work as one of these

communities kept out of the capitalist forces but with a slight incoherence: the

importance of the Bank and their initial tenancy agreement necessary for their

survival there.

In this stage the building represented a space for the unproductive members of

the society, who fought to keep them out the movement happened in Berlin

which tried to renew the city. Berlin was in a period of continuous capitalist


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movement and it was assuming the standards ways of living and making strong

efforts for cleaning the old city. Berlin was one the cities which has undergone

much urban changes with the restructuration after the fall of the Wall and

consequently many spaces were abandoned and re-appropriated by the socially

and economically marginalized. The artists used this space because it needed

be used, because a space without social practices, without inhabitants and

users finish disappearing, and they wanted to conserve it. They were fighting for

the survival of the space making what they knew: art. They occupation

represented a revolution in the distribution of public space. However the space

converted into an emblematic creative place for the city and the people who

discovered the place in his first period state that was his fame what destroyed

their original meanings.

After their artistic period when their purposes were directed to express with

art, the artists become constructers of space seekers of a benefit. They started

to give more importance to the production and the sales of their artworks than

the creative process. It is obvious that this change didnt take place

spontaneously, but after a gradual evolution and the force of different factors

that even the inhabitants of the building ignore. The fact is that they were tryingto seem out of the purposeful labour production, but finished succumbing to

work under the rules of the production for consumption process and at the

service of the market. This is the materialization of what Lefebvre stated about

the conceived space, which has a primacy over the lived and the perceived

space. Social and cultural practices conformed the lived space and graffiti,

paintings and the smell of an old building are part of the symbols of Tacheles,

which were changed for a constructed space in the benefit of tourism and

capitalism.

The increase of art movement and the arrival of tourism searching of art

experiences as spatial practices changed the urban reality around Tacheles and

created a spatial structure out of the borders of the building. This dispersion

achieved that a limited space grew providing the surroundings of the meaning

given to Tacheles. This produced the insertion of new art museums close to the

building and the improvement of the social status of the neighbourhood taking


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more relevance in the city. This is how capitalism reorganizes urbanism

adapting to the new necessities emerged in the city.

We have seen how capitalism abandons his material capital and public spaces

when they are not profitable for them. Also something interesting of research is

how the capitalism takes advantage of what people create and build only with

the purpose of obtaining a benefit. In our case we see it reflected in the fact that

the artists werent evicted of the building immediately after the end of their

contract. The owner waited on purpose for some more years because of some

reasons: The first one was in order to get the squatters decline their resistance

for going out.

Another fact was that the end of the tenancy coincided with the financial crisis,

which means the building couldnt be sold or only for a low amount of money.

For the artists the crisis represented an opportunity to challenge the gentrifying

forces and a won battle for the good of the use of public space. It has signified

the beginning of a new movement of reoccupation of bourgeois spaces for

social purposes.

But what is interesting for this research is the fact that capitalism, being

conscious of what fame was achieving the building and the neighbourhood

around wanted this time in order to increase the value of the building. In fact,

this was what happened because the building was sold for the amount of $269

Million. This figure was unthinkable twenty years ago, when nobody knew what

a hotspot that area would become. The owner of the building had a property

which was going to be demolished because it hadnt any price and now he finds

with a hot property longed for the main investors and fund-management

companies of the country, which is going to be converted in apartments.The

sale would help speed up the gentrification of Berlins central Mittedistrict,

where luxury boutiques and modern condominiums have replaced rundown

squats and abandoned land. A former post office building on the same street is

due to be converted into apartments.This represents the power of capitalism of

owning and transforming spaces, always converting spaces as machines for

production of richness.


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TACHELES AS A RUIN

Tacheles as a ruin has an interesting meaning worthy of being analysed. It has

represented a period of fight in the conservation of the urban memories. It is a

physical example which was saved because of the nostalgia of a prior time of

success and peak.

Tacheles has suffered many changes since the occupation of the space, but

something which consolidated the space was the Musealisationiiit lived. The

building was conceived as a space to visit only to go back to the times when

emerged all the social revolution around Berlin. A building or monument with a

hundred years of history could recall different moments of this century, however

normally it takes only the strongest image it has been remember, the image of

what was most decisive for society in the context of the city. For this reason

Tacheles is not going to be remembered as an old mall like it emerged, it will be

a memory of a period of social struggle and like a space of freedom and art.

The artists created the concept of occupying a ruin for artistic and social

purposes. And it became a trendy activity. In Budapest also we can find the ruin

bars where this idea is set-up. They improve the image of the space taking

advantage of the connotations of the ruin. In this stage they turned into liars

wanting to sell their space as the poor but sexy slogan characteristic of the city

of Berlin. However this space wasnt poor anymore, because the poverty is

socially related with the trash of the society, and it is ethically disapproved

completely different of the connotations given to our case. Nevertheless, the hip

of the current days is still selling ruins or second-hand objects as the vintage

fashionable, seeking to recover previous memories.

The conservation of this building signified also the maintenance of a social

group, a social identity created around Berlin in the 90s. Tacheles represented

an identity of the city, an identity which has changed in the last years and it has

modernized. In the moment Tacheles had life, it portrayed a visual contradiction

between the old and the current modern urbanism. But now with the new owner

and the reconstruction everything is going to change. The loss of a building in

semiotic terms could be the lack of a signifier and inherently the absence of thissignified (or the lived space in the awarded terms of Lefebvre) joined to it. This


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demolition could be the loss of the typology of the shapes and forms which go

directly related with the memories and the pass images associated to them.

Nevertheless the physic building is not the only signifier for Tacheles; some

people have created the virtual Tachelesiiiin order to maintain alive the lived

space, and many artists embodied the space in their artworks.

The memory of Tacheles is preserved for instance in the film 'Good Bye, Lenin',

which was inspired by the place. In one scene the protagonist appears in the

building with a woman, drinking beer and smoking shaping here the atmosphere

and the soul of the space. Other way of give shape of a memory is throughout

the music and his lyrics. In the background of the scene sounded the

soundtrack of the film composed by Yann Tiersen, with these words:

Winds of change blowing in the ruins of our republic. Summer came and Berlin

was the nicest place on the layer of the earth. We had the feeling of being the

centre of the world, where finally something moved and we moved with his

rhythm."

CONCLUSION

After these arguments the main point I want to obtain is how spaces like this

gain value and popularity with the pass of the time. The factors or elements that

produce value in Tacheles go around the creation of a self-identity. The spatial

practices around art, the lived space related with revolutionary and also cultural

symbols and the social context turned the space into a landmark in the city.

Nevertheless, the end of this building symbolise the beginning of a crisis of

memory and the reject of the beauty and signified of the old city. This loss

shows as the success of capitalism in the occupation and the planning of space.

I could state that every space worthwhile for capitalism, could become be

controlled and taken up by it, in order to reconstruct profitable spaces at the

service of his economic purposes always searchers of benefits.


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iHall, P, (1996 )`Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planningand Design in the Twentieth Century,3rd Edition 2002, Wiley-Blackwell , p.206-213iiCrinson, M, Urban Memory- an introduction. P. 11-20iii

Tacheles 3D online:https://www.cloudparty.com/#8.1,-29,-44,-0.8_2267

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- Crinson, Mark. Urban Memory An Introduction, Urban Memory, Mark

Crinson ed. (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. xi-xx.

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Sociology, Vol. 26 (2000), Available online:.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377Accessed: 15/01/2014 Pp.

463-472

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Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century,3rd Edition 2002, Wiley-

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- Lefebvre, H. The Right to the City, in: Writings on Cities: Henri Lefebvre

(Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 147-159.

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Nicholson-Smith Pp. 68-85

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Available online:http://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-

content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfAccess: 10/01/2014

Articles:

Al Burian, Sep 10 2012, Berlin story: adieu, Tacheles

http://www.vice.com/read/adieu-tacheles

Fahmy,D Sep 4, 2012, Berlins Tacheles Cleared of Squatters on Prime Mitte

Site Bloomberg newshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.html
https://www.cloudparty.com/#8.1,-29,-44,-0.8_2267https://www.cloudparty.com/#8.1,-29,-44,-0.8_2267https://www.cloudparty.com/#8.1,-29,-44,-0.8_2267http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377http://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://www.vice.com/read/adieu-tacheleshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-04/berlin-s-tacheles-cleared-of-squatters-on-prime-mitte-site-1-.htmlhttp://www.vice.com/read/adieu-tacheleshttp://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://ccges.apps01.yorku.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/04Untiks.pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/223453?uid=3738736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103312526377https://www.cloudparty.com/#8.1,-29,-44,-0.8_2267


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Fahmy, D Nov 14, 2013, Berlins Tacheles Landmark Ruins for Sale for $269

MillionBloomberg news http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-

abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.html

Mediavilla,E, 13.09.2012 GOOD BYE, TACHELES?http://www.traveler.es/viajes/viajes-urbanos/articulos/good-bye-tacheles/2463

Video: Documentary: Berlin: "What is Tacheles?" Available online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnbV_4WzB8Access: 14/01/2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.htmlhttp://www.traveler.es/viajes/viajes-urbanos/articulos/good-bye-tacheles/2463http://www.traveler.es/viajes/viajes-urbanos/articulos/good-bye-tacheles/2463http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnbV_4WzB8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnbV_4WzB8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnbV_4WzB8http://www.traveler.es/viajes/viajes-urbanos/articulos/good-bye-tacheles/2463http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.htmlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/berlin-s-abandoned-tacheles-landmark-for-sale-for-269-million.html

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City Culture: Abandoned spaces