A culture of appropriation : strategies of temporary reuse in East Germany

Abstract

This thesis examines the possibilities of creative appropriation of existing spaces. It defines interstitial practices as both critical and imaginative forces that actively participate in the production of social space. Temporary interventions assert their topicality by inserting themselves into specific urban discourses in which they have the potential to act as cultural catalysts. Two recent festivals, Volkspalast (2004) in Berlin and Hotel Neustadt (2003) in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt), serve as case studies that exemplify different strategies of the temporary. Staged in buildings that were scheduled for demolition, both festivals address the gradual disappearance of "socialist" architecture and urbanism in the realm of the former East Germany.