The New Berlin Threshold Atlas

During the workshop we will use a variety of artistic methods and strategies to develop a new edition of the Berlin Threshold Atlas, tracking down, documenting and bringing to life ruptures, transitions and thresholds.

After the Wall came down, Berlin has become famous for its fractures and scars, its open spaces and the enormous creativity they have unleashed. Berlin was synonymous with dynamism, diverse subcultures, a vibrant club and cultural scene, a wide variety of social and artistic spaces and fields of experimentation. In the meantime, the city has come under increasing pressure: The housing market is competitive, vacant lots and open spaces have been filled with investor architecture. Displacement and gentrification are exacerbating the social situation and creating parallel, segregated living environments. But even today the hidden urban potentials and qualities, the niches and in-between spaces, they still exist, but they are less obvious than before; it takes a specialised, focused view to see them.

During the workshop, we're going to explore the city of Berlin. We map, observe and track down in-between spaces and hidden urban potentials. We use various artistic strategies derived from the well-known great Berlin Flâneurs or the Situationists. The aim is to dissect the city, to experience it creatively, unsystematically and spontaneously. Based on Walter Benjamin's "threshold concept", we ask about the transitional areas and borders (where are the borders of the situations that merge into one another in the threshold area? What is the quality of these threshold? When do we cross an area and how can these areas be described or visualised?) In a joint process, a new Berlin threshold atlas (c.f. Arch+ 192/193, 2009) will be created, a compendium of i.e. text, image and video, which may also include performative and interventionist strategies.

Course leader

Dr. Turit Fröbe and Karl Michael Lange