reclaiming urbanity: indeterminate spaces, informal actors ...as the normative essence of...

Reclaiming Urbanity: Indeterminate Spaces,Informal Actors and Urban Agenda Setting

Jacqueline Groth and Eric Corijn

[Paper first received, July 2003; in final form, September 2004]

Summary. This paper discusses the phenomenon of ‘informal actors’ influencing the agenda ofurban planning and urban politics by means of temporary reappropriation and animation of‘indeterminate’ spaces. The latter are spaces left out of ‘time and place’ with regard to theirurban surroundings, mainly as a consequence of rampant deindustrialisation processes and the‘shrinking’ city. The unclear and undetermined status of these urban ‘no-man’s-lands’ mayallow for the emergence of a non-planned, spontaneous ‘urbanity’. This intervention may bebased on different motives: marginal lifestyles, informal economies, artistic experimentation, adeliberately open transformation of public space allowing for equal access and equalrepresentation or a high degree of social and cultural inclusion. These expressions of the ‘lived’city at present constitute a pronounced paradox for established city planning and urban politics.Institutionalised stakeholders may occasionally appreciate their presence for their inherentpotential to enhance attractiveness of and revitalisation of certain parts of the city. On the otherhand, these sites and the actors involved also spatialise and visualise a resistance and temporaryalternative to the institutionalised domain and the dominant principles of urban development.Urban restructuring in the post-Fordist city, foremost in the development of inner-city areas, isincreasingly focused on a unidimensional logic of commodification, monofunctionality andcontrol. Thus, the complex qualities of animated ‘indeterminate’ spaces are difficult toincorporate into planning procedures. They often become threatened in their existence andpushed to the margins. Nevertheless, the urban conflict around these sites and the appearance of‘non-planned’ planners on the urban scene, may decisively alter the urban agenda and set thethemes for further development, which takes their positive economic and social function andtheir key role in sustaining and renewing urban cultures into account. The paper discusses thisphenomenon, illustrated with an account of three case studies in the cities of Helsinki, Berlinand Brussels. The comparative dimension allows for a subsequent discussion focusing onelaborating the conditions of ‘success’ for informal actors in urban development processes. Thepredominant question then is how these new forms of urbanism can be given a place in cityplanning in order to pay more justice to the social and cultural complexity that constitutescontemporary urbanity.

Urbanity at the Centre of Post-Fordism

For the past two to three decades, cities in theWestern world have been subject to major

economic, social and cultural transformations,which are gradually affecting changes inurban politics and development. In the indus-trial Fordist growth model, cities were firmly

Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, 503–526, March 2005

Jacqueline Groth resides in Paris, France. Fax: þ33 (0) 145 685 790. E-mail: [email protected]. Eric Corijn is in the Centrefor Urban Research COSMOPOLIS—City, Culture and Society, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.Fax: 0032 2 629 3378. E-mail: [email protected]. The authors thank Stefan de Corte, Hans Mommaas, Justin O’Connor,Jan Verwijnen and Panu Lehvotuori for their comments and reading of earlier versions of the text.

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embedded in the regulatory and redistributiveframework of the centralised welfare state. Inthe transition towards a ‘flexible accumulationregime’ (Harvey, 1989) operating on a trulyglobal scale, this has become dysfunctional.Cities tend to become levels of regulationin a triangular relationship with ‘the world’and ‘the nation-state’ (Boudry et al., 2003).Today’s ‘decentred’ cities are subject to anincreasing interurban competition and facethe need to assert their position with regardto a global ‘space of flows’ comprising themain elements of function, information andpower (Castells, 1997). At the same time,urban politics and city planning have torespond to the parallel processes of culturaland social change. They are confronted withan urban realm which is no longer markedby more or less homogeneous life patternsand spatial practices, but by a pronouncedplurality and fragmentation in terms oflifestyles, by tensions arising from theco-existence of multiple and contested identi-ties and by new mechanisms of exclusion andpolarisation as the ‘local’ corollaries of anincreasing global interconnectedness and theneo-liberal re-orientation of the economicsphere (Sassen, 1996). The “compaction andre-territorialisation of so many residents withhistories, cultures and demands that disruptthe normative and assumed categories ofsocial life” (Holston, 1998, p. 50) make thepost-Fordist city one which is replete withcontradictions and oppositions. It is composedof urban landscapes marked off by differ-ence (Sandercock, 1998), where the relationbetween ‘universal’ and ‘particular’ is openfor contestation (Robins, 1993). These sub-stantial transformation processes and theireffects on the urban are best subsumed underthe notion of ‘glocalisation’ (Swyngedouw,1997), a term capable of covering the mani-fold ambiguities and the decisively localimpacts and negotiation processes globalrestructuring entails.

Cities have attempted to answer these newchallenges with considerable changes intheir approaches to urban politics and cityplanning. The Fordist city has a state-led,managerial system of city governance and a

predominantly modernist planning regime,closely connected to the Keynesian welfarestate. The production of space catered fora relatively uniform society in a system ofmass production and mass consumption. Ithas been superseded by an increasingly moreflexible mode of urban development. Centralto a city’s urban policy now seems to be thesubordination of social to economic priorities:contemporary market-led urban developmententails an entrepreneurial stance in whichdiverse actors from across different segmentsof society (urban authorities, private promo-ters, parts of civil society) form ad hoc‘urban growth coalitions’ and engage in morepiecemeal, pragmatic planning procedures(‘projects’) to the detriment of comprehen-sive, multifunctional master plans (Mayer,1999; Amin, 1994). Such trends assist boththe pronounced institutional transformationsmarking a shift from ‘government’ to ‘govern-ance’, and the dismissal of holistic con-ceptions of the urban. Recent approaches areequally qualified by a transition from ‘hard’to ‘soft(er)’ issues: for example, culturallyled regeneration is given prominence overmere physical renewal (Corijn, 1999). In acondition where

the homogeneous social within the grandmaster plan has lost its force, it is now thenorm to opt for ‘pluralistic’ and ‘organic’strategies for approaching urban develop-ment as a ‘collage’ of highly differen-tiated spaces and mixtures (Donald, 1999,p. 56).

Programmatically, these changes imply anincreasing awareness of the particularities ofthe city as opposed to modernism’s authoritar-ian and scientific abstraction of the urbanlife-world. However, assuming that a newplanning sensibility is heralded, paying justiceto the city’s plurality of life-worlds and claimsof its inhabitants, is highly misleading. Newbargaining systems that mobilise public–private partnerships for more efficientrealisations of urban development tasks takethe most varied forms as concerns theirobjectives, outcomes and target groups. Thehorizontal style of these negotiation systems

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thus does not necessarily result in a greateropenness to democratic influence and localneeds (Mayer, 1994). As ferociously as mod-ernist planning with its practices of mono-functional zoning, the ruthless eradication ofthe vernacular and widespread sights ofrepressive architecture has impacted on whatHaussermann and Siebel (1987) detectsas the normative essence of ‘urbanity’—namely, the ‘confrontation with diversity, theun-expected, the non-planned and the resistantmoment’, the space for the articulation andintegration of the ‘other’—new urban strat-egies may impose different, but equally con-straining visions. Entrepreneurial approachesin city planning aiming at increasing mobility,international competition and image market-ing, all too often tend to homogenise spaceon consumerist and aestheticised grounds.The restructuring of city centres in particularreflects practices that see the consolidationof the ‘divided’ city: space is functionallyand economically shared, but subject to anincreasing social and cultural segregation(Robins, 1993).

Academic and public debate on the ‘content’and the implications of this “re-conquest of thecity by commodity and capital”, as formulatedby Swyngedouw (2003b, p. 12), is extensiveand manifold. Auge’s (1992) account of ‘non-places’, the diverse discussions on the ‘end ofpublic space’ and its increasing commodifica-tion, sanitisation and surveillance (Sorkin,1992; Sennett, 1992; Hajer, 1999), or theexclusionary ‘landscapes of power’ as part ofcultural regeneration strategies detected byZukin (1995), have in common the depictionof the proliferation of a specific kind of post-modern ‘urbanity’. At their most extreme,these new modes of generating or transformingurban space no longer provide for friction: theytend to reduce the city’s complexity, impactnegatively on relational spaces of encounterand transition or, simply, may no longerprovide the conditions for the ‘city as habitat’in specific areas. As mechanistic and simplisticas some of these briefly mentioned argumentsmay partly seem, they all point to thefact that what constitutes ‘urbanity’ in thepost-Fordist city is still (or more so than ever)

a contested and rather open notion. The predo-minant notion of the latter as engendered bymarket-led urban development seems to paylittle tribute to the socio-cultural challengesand divergences of the city. In discursive terms

post-modern urbanism conceives of amultiplicity of diverse and reverberatinglife-worlds, a ‘plurality of full valid voices’whose combination moves towards anunknown city (Donald, 1999, p. 138).

Current practice, however, produces spacesthat are largely streamlined under a preroga-tive of commodification and control andbased on a mere superficial or aestheticinstrumentalisation of ‘difference’ (Relph,1987; Harvey, 1989). What is lost in thesedevelopments, is—leaving aside the widerimplications for questions of social justiceand democratic representation—a dimensionof socioeconomic richness and cultural mobi-lity upon which the traditional metropolisthrives. In this kind of scenario, single-minded “zero-friction spaces” (Hajer, 1999,p. 31) and staged images of the ‘public’replace the spaces of idiosyncratic interaction.

However, this dominant notion of ‘urban-ity’ is one which is resisted and questionedfrom many sides and by the most diverse prac-tices of intervention. The post-Fordist city andurban politics are subject to

a multiplicity of struggles and confronta-tions, involving a wide range of constituen-cies and social actors, with many of thesestruggles, in fact relating to the cityscape(Westwood and Williams, 1997, p. 5).

Urban conflict in the Fordist era was largelyplayed out along institutionalised lines, withorganised actors, and clearly definable withantagonistic positions confronting each other(Mayer, 1998b). The agendas were clear andpredictable. Today’s ‘struggles’ and contesta-tions are as fragmented, differentiated and, asconcerns the claims raised, contradictory astheir agents. Conflicts become increasinglyissues of professional actors and civilcounter-worlds, of constellations of the ‘tem-porary’ and ‘ad hoc coherences’ embedded

RECLAIMING URBANITY 505



in a specific spatial structure and based oninterconnection through a series of networksstretching across localities. This transform-ation must be seen within the framework ofrecent urban restructuring and the changes inthe local sphere of politics which have engen-dered decisively new lines of opposition(Mayer, 2000).

When exploring the potential of new urbanmovements or initiatives to offer ‘alternativeurban futures’, it seems promising to partfrom the phenomenon of active repossessionsand symbolic reconstructions of everydayurban spatial structures that one encountersin almost any city. It is in places that are notcoded by market-led urban development—since temporarily left aside from the hegemo-nic visions of configuration of urban space(due to their having become obsolete interms of their original function and use-value)—where distinct possibilities for prac-tices of innovation and playful interventionarise. In particular, urban residual spacessuch as abandoned industrial areas—i.e. inter-stitial sites that are weak in spatial terms may,due to their ‘indeterminate’ character and acertain degree of “semantic emptiness whichreigns supreme” (architect Stefano Boeriquoted in Borret, 1999, p. 241)—provideopportunities for new, transitional reappro-priations that are assumed by civil or ‘infor-mal’ actors coming from outside the official,institutionalised domain of urban planningand urban politics. These spontaneous,organic evolutions epitomise a differentnotion of ‘urbanity’ from that which isevident in planned developments owing totheir dissociation from modernist utilitarianapproaches and the logics of planning. Intheir essence, they thus testify to an ideologywhich is “libertarian, marginal, deviant andcertainly disrespectful of the traditionalcodes of the city” (Borret, 1999, p. 242). Weapproach these spaces as sites where clashesin ‘urban meaning’ manifest themselves,since different pathways of urban develop-ment are envisaged by an often temporarilylimited activity which eventually may evenstand the chance of altering existing planningprerogatives. Thus, these sites reappropriated

for cultural and other uses also typify thenew importance and meaning of socially con-structed space in the contemporary city as thelocus where “values, identities and systems ofreference are confronted with each other”(Lefebvre, 1996, p. 416). If such kinds ofbottom–up interventions and transformationsof urban space are understood as expressionsof rights based on the ‘lived’ experience,what is their actual significance on the urbanagenda? In which dimensions and to whatextent do they inhabit the “germs of a newform of urbanism and urban policy” (Swynge-douw, 2003b, p. 7) current processes fall shortof including?

In what follows, the influence of ‘informalactors’ on the setting of the urban agendawill be illustrated with an account of threerecent cases of the reanimation of ‘indetermi-nate’ urban space in the cities of Helsinki,Berlin and Brussels. In order to frame theurban conflicts researched, the three casestudies will be introduced by a brief discus-sion on urban dynamics in each city. In eachcase, we will trace the specific evolution ofthese reappropriations, attempt to detect themeaning attached to them and describe theinherent qualities and socio-cultural functionswith which these transformed sites have beenendowed, with regard to their urban surround-ings. Some light will be shed on the conflicthaving emerged: we will examine the charac-ter of the planned developments and officialstakeholders’ prerogatives impacting on thefurther existence of the spaces and outlinethe nature of alternative claims and visionsof development as advocated by actorsengaged in the transitional sites. Particularconsideration in all three cases will be givento the specific ‘constellations of defence’having emerged in these sites and the meansto make their claims heard by the ‘informal’actors employed.

Subsequently, we will elaborate on the pre-conditions of ‘success’ for processes that areto be encountered in the interstices of every-day urban practice. We will question underwhich conditions civil actors can initiate orhave impact upon the foundation of transfor-mative urban programmes.




Three Cases

The three covered cases are: Makasiinit(Helsinki), Raw-Tempel (Berlin) and LeopoldStation (Brussels).1 They all three exemplifyimportant, yet ‘undetermined’ places inthe urban development. All three are obsoleterailway land. They are not ‘marginal’ in thesense that their development would not bearheavily on the overall development of thecity concerned. On the contrary, they have stra-tegic positions, but are not (yet) covered by anurban strategy. That is why they are subject tostruggles around ‘urban agenda setting’ andwhy different actors confront their strategicoptions. Through rethinking the orientationfor the future development of the sites, theoverall planning for the surroundings is redis-cussed. Of course, the selection of the casesis also based on pragmatic reasons of accessi-bility and knowledge of the context.

The research on the case studies is primar-ily based on the information obtained from30 semi-structured interviews with both‘informal’ actors (i.e. ‘representatives’ involvedin the initial appropriation of the residualstructures and their transformation and actorsprominent in the public debate, such as repre-sentatives of citizens’ initiatives) and ‘formal’or ‘institutionalised’ actors (city planningauthorities, estate owners, local politicalrepresentatives).2 The interviews aimed toelucidate contrasting meanings, claims andvisions associated with the sites by diverseurban actors. Further sources of informationare relevant academic research, existingmedia coverage and the documentationissued by actors directly involved in one ofthe three sites.

‘Makasiinit’, Helsinki: ‘Warehouse Utopia?!’

In the shadow of uncertainty, the ware-houses have become a ‘metaspace’, aplace of opportunities and surprisingencounters. They are a state of mind, afeeling that things are in a certain (free,unusual, relaxed, activating) way (artistKataarina Katajisto; quoted in Lehtovuori,2000a, p. 36).

The conflict around Helsinki’s old warehousesin Toolonlahtibay—commonly referred to asthe ‘Makasiini’—is a telling example of thecompeting visions of ‘urbanity’ in the reima-gineering the Finnish capital has undergonein the past decade. Finland has experienceda rather late correlation of economic crisisand subsequent urban restructuring. Helsinki,however, quickly entered the ‘global cityage’ from the beginning of the 1990sonwards (Cantell, 1999). This developmentwas a direct result of its changed geopoliticalsituation entailing a newly defined role on theinternational scene. This new situation whichforced the city to place itself firmly on theglobal map is characterised by the adoptionof new strategies to achieve success in a chan-ging global environment (Helsinki Universityof Technology, 2001) and has entailed majorchanges in urban planning and policy: atpresent, the planning regime is oscillatingbetween its modernist background and newstreams of strategic planning and marketeconomy policies. Current urban developmentprerogatives, especially in exposed areas ofthe city centre, have been intertwined with astrong focus on urban development througheconomic ‘growth’—reflected, for example,in a growing accent on consumption facilities,the widespread application of the ‘glass-palace phenomenon’ and a general strivingfor a ‘neat’ and controlled city (Hentila, inter-view). Concomitant with these tendencies is anew awareness on the part of the city auth-orities of the role of culture and culturalplace marketing strategies in urban develop-ment, evident for example in the city authorities’determined bid for European Cultural Capital2000, the commissioning of reports on thecity’s cultural life and creative potentialfrom abroad3 and cultural flagship develop-ments such as the Museum of ContemporaryArt, ‘Kiasma’.

The former railway sheds that are thesubject of this research are located in themost central, not least in symbolical terms,inner-city area of Helsinki. Toolonlahtibay—framed by the Finnish Parliament, theNational Opera House, Alvar Aalto’s Finlan-dia Hall and the two recent developments of




‘Kiasma’ and ‘Sanomatalo’ (the seat of themain Finnish news corporation)—has evolvedhistorically as a monumental space and theseat of ‘high culture’ (see Lehtovuori, 2000b),or, in Lefebvre’s terminology (1991), a‘space of representation’ par excellence. Theu-shaped wooden structures of the ‘Makasiini’,which occupy an area of about 10 000 squaremetres, offer a striking visual contrast withinthis monumental setting. Being one of theoldest buildings in the centre of Helsinki(erected in 1898 for goods storage), it wasabandoned for use by the State Railways in1987 and subsequently became a rough anddeserted ‘no-go-area’ in the heart of the city.

At the beginning of the 1990s, two collec-tives of artists (‘Muu Ry’ and ‘VapandenAukio’) in search of affordable space in theinner city occupied the premises which thensubsequently took an unplanned, organicpath of transformation from ‘Helsinki’sBronx’ to the ‘living-room’ of the capitaland gradually evolved as the stronghold of anew grassroots urban culture.4 Parting froman initial focus on artistic production and con-sumption assumed by various actors from theindependent art scene, the warehouses havesince attracted very diverse and continuouslychanging ‘users’ and events, making the spacea veritable ‘non-institutionalised’ social and

Figure 1. The U-shaped warehouses in Toolonlahtibay, central Helsinki. Source: Information package ofthe Music Hall Competition, City of Helsinki (2000).




cultural institution in the heart of the city. Fromthe very early stages of reappropriation, the‘Makasiini’ has emerged as a space whichdoes not speak the traditional language of plan-ning: its fluctuating ‘tenants’ were bound bytemporary lease contracts to the estate owner(the Finnish Railway company), thus allowinga ‘spontaneous urbanity’ to arise which hasbeen open to constant change and flexible,almost personalised, transformation of space.Or, as Lehtovuori asks

Where else in the city centre could you picka piece of wire, do something with it andmay be ‘exhibit’ it, or where else couldyou spontaneously repair a small corner?(Lehtovuori, 2000a, p. 37).

Over the following years, the ‘Makasiini’have come to occupy a heavily exposedpresence.5 The residence of small businessesmainly related to ‘green’ commerce and cul-tural production, a versatile and peculiarevent space, a springboard for cultural novel-ties and the setting of the city’s most popularflea market attracting more than 400 000people a year, the warehouses “allowed forcertain things to happen which would nothave happened anywhere else in this city”(Kajas, interview). This transformation intothe “common people’s place in front of theParliament” and the creation of a publicsphere not exclusively bound to the logic ofconsumption, have fostered the emergenceof a meaningful meeting-place for people

Figure 1. Continued.




from diverse segments of society to “learn apositive urbanity, to encounter the other andto enter into interaction” (Kajas, interview).Thus, the manifold activity in the warehouseshas contributed to and exemplifies Helsinki’scultural sea-change of the 1990s: a residualspace by then completely ignored by urbanauthorities has been reclaimed by emergingcivil society and has thereby

offered opportunities to reveal existingrepresentations of space, the dominant spaceof the city authorities, planners, police etc.and question this order by carnivalesqueambivalence (Cantell, 1999, p. 257).

However, the transformation of the ware-houses into the ‘living-room’ for a ratherlarge user base of urbanites was not takenaccount of by the city planners nor was itregarded as a factor to be considered infurther planning decisions.6 The middle ofthe 1990s mark a new impetus for the recen-tralisation of Toolonlahtibay and its culturaland symbolic exploitation, coinciding withthe city’s new image awareness, and plansfor the construction of a new Music Hall(based on earlier proposals of the early1990s) on the site of the ‘Makasiini’ werebrought forward by the authorities. TheMusic Hall development is a joint project bythe state, the Sibelius Academy and the NationalBroadcasting Company YLE. Although notvery spectacular in architectural terms, it is anational object of prestige and a symbol of‘high’ Finnish culture traditionally to belocated in the centre of the city.7 From theearly stages onwards, the city applied apolicy of ‘no alternatives’ as far as thelocation of the new development was con-cerned, implying the ‘natural’ demolition ofthe warehouses. Declaring the area of thewarehouses as “vagabond space on the mostvaluable land in Helsinki” (Deputy MayorKorpinen), the City Planning Departmentfirmly insisted on the need to remove the oldshunting yards in order to “free land for newurban functions and enabling Central Park tobe extended right down into the heart of thecity” (City Planning Department Helsinki,2000, p. 122).

The subsequent planning for the develop-ment of the Music Hall is characterised byrhetorical silences and a great deal of conceal-ment on the part of the city authorities: until2002, the Music Hall was the only majornew development not figuring on the websiteof the City Planning Office and there was nopublic debate on its actual costs and financing.Also, an agreement between the city and thestate on the share of building rights (datingback to 1986) was not revealed: this agree-ment, however, stood behind the fixed gameof exploitation of the area. Thus, this planningprocedure reflects an extreme case of diver-gence between the domain of city planningconsidering the site as ‘virgin’ land and thedomain of the ‘lived’ city.

However, from 1998 onwards, the unclearstatus of the warehouses has engenderedrising public awareness and has fuelled resist-ance. At that time, the ‘Pro-Makasiini’ move-ment—a loose platform of supporters unitingpoliticians, residents of the adjacent neigh-bourhood, researchers and diverse culturaland social associations—emerged and itsemergence marks the articulation of voicesexternal to the space. The influence of thisfluid conglomeration of actors has been pro-found. As a forum for public debate, it hassucceeded in initiating a city-wide discussionon the planning and decision-making pro-cedures highlighting the inherent qualitiesof the activities that have evolved in thewarehouses. The activities of this looseorganisation of actors included regular publicdiscussions, diverse petitions for the preser-vation of the structures, a ‘Makasiini’ website,a ‘Pro-Makasiini’ manifesto and a petitionsigned by more than 30 000 inhabitants. Fur-thermore, the group drafted an alternativere-use plan for the warehouses, allowing foran open-ended and flexible development ofthe site by preserving its built structures anddrawing on the current socio-cultural poten-tial. Transgressing the mere issue of the pres-ervation of the vernacular structures and thevalue of its grassroots urban culture, thepublic discussion has taken on a much widersignificance as to according to ‘whose’vision the city of Helsinki should evolve in




the future. This profound repercussion of theconflict around the development of the sitewas most evident in the election campaign tothe City Parliament in 2000, which becamein essence an election about the future of‘Makasiini’. In the same year, ‘Pro-Makasiini’organised the largest civil action in the city ofHelsinki since the early 1970s: the ‘HumanWall’ involved 7000 people forming a ringaround the built structures in order toprovoke a political reaction and openly topresent alternatives (see Figure 2). Apartfrom the conventional channels of influencingthe decision-making processes (petitions andlegal complaints), the actors involved in thedefence of the ‘Makasiini’ have thus predomi-nantly engaged with playful means in order togain a public stance and wide media coverage.However, in 2002, the final plan for the con-struction of the music hall was adopted afterfierce debates in the City Parliament and, in2004, the new development will replace thewarehouses with only a ‘kitsch’ memorytrace of a few incorporated wooden elements

to evoke the original structure. The fact that“In this place, the diverse centre of the cityis realised in the true sense of the word sincethe warehouses are used in the ordinary livesof a very wide sector of society”, as is con-ceded by a senior city planning official(Sundman, 2002), was subjugated to a rigidplanning procedure primarily reflecting theold dichotomies between ‘high’ and ‘low’culture. The disappearance of Helsinki’swarehouses thus is a strong example of howcultural strategies of redevelopment areincreasingly used to create a coherent visualrepresentation of the city and a “consumablevision of civility” (Zukin, 1995, p. 21); a strat-egy which—when materialised in the pro-duction of urban space—inevitably involvesthe neglect of variety and cements socialinjustice.

Notwithstanding the actual outcome of theconflict around the warehouses which hasbeen in tangible terms a negative one for thecivil actors of ‘Pro-Makasiini’, substantialchanges to the urban agenda of Helsinki can

Figure 2. Makasiini, Helsinki: the ‘Human Wall’, 2000. Source: Helsinki Sanomat (2000).




be traced. From a situation where the cityplanning authorities had not been at allaware of the cultural and social complexityof the warehouses whose ‘non-value’ wasmerely approached in architectural and func-tional terms, the final phases of the articula-tion of this conflict manifest a different levelof debate and an increasing cognisance onthe part of the city authorities of the diversi-fied social and cultural issues highlighted inthis distinctive kind of place “where anyone,also the marginal, can come” (Katajisto,interview).

Whether this growing rhetorical sensitivitywith regard to temporary spaces and its crea-tive and lively potential may provoke animpact on similar planning decisions inHelsinki in the future, is at present left open.

Raw-Tempel, Berlin: ‘The Parallel Universein its Pioneering Phase’

Berlin wird . . . [Berlin is becoming . . .](slogan of the City Marketing Office until1995).

The case study in Berlin offers striking paral-lels to the evolution of a complex, innovativeand spontaneous urban activity in a formerabandoned, residual space that was observedin Helsinki’s warehouses. The ‘RAW-Tempel’ (‘Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk’—i.e. railway workshop of German State Rail-ways) is a vast area of industrial structuresembedded between a socioeconomically pro-blematic residential area of extreme density(Boxhagener Kiez, district of Friedrichshain)and a radical openness which is part of anextended stretch of urban wastelands on thenorth side of the River Spree (‘Oberer Spreer-aum’) (see Figure 3). This wide urban‘vacuum’ is the result of Berlin-specific dere-lict land which, at the beginning of the 1990s,was ignored by the construction and develop-ment boom focusing on the more central areaof ‘Berlin-Mitte’.8 In the past decade, thisurban fringe has evolved as a “laboratory forexamining the residual” (Oswald, 2000,p. 84), a safe haven for sub-cultures and the‘temporary’. However, the Upper Spree area

at present is increasingly seen as the newmajor development axis in Berlin: its sheersize and central location offering—in the eyesof the investors—singular potential for retailand third-sector business development. Recentplans such as the ‘Media Spree’ project9 com-missioned for the development of the areaclearly manifest the one-sided, ambiguouscharacter reflected by the restructuring ofBerlin since 1989. In post-reunificationBerlin—where urban development processesseem to produce themselves in a veritabletime-lapse and the impact of strong economicpressures on planning procedures are manifestwith the shortest delays—new projects almostexclusively follow the illusionary logic of thegrowing ‘international service metropolis’ byfocusing on the already oversaturated officeand retail sector and parting from a radical‘tabula rasa’ strategy (Technische UniversitaetBerlin and Nexus, 2002). However, althoughthe development hype and models of discourseemerging at the beginning of the 1990s inBerlin have been rendered irrelevant by urbanreality, they continue to sustain current mono-functional development tendencies. Berlinnow counts as one of the poorest Germancities facing an increasing socio-spatial polaris-ation and a decline in population within the citylimits. Overoptimistic forecasts of the early1990s, however, assumed an expected popu-lation growth of 1.4 million by the year 2010and projected the need for 11–15 millionsquare metres of new office space. At present,

Figure 3. The RAW-Tempel site in Berlin: the‘urban void’ situated in between the districts ofFriedrichshain and Kreutzberg stretches along theRiver Spree. Source: Tu Berlin and Nexus (2002)

Urban Catalysts. Berlin site analysis.




more than 10 per cent of office space develop-ments remain vacant (Kratke and Borst, 2000).Within the neo-liberal reorientation of the plan-ning system, largely a consequence of Berlin’sdramatic fiscal crisis, the city at utmostoccupies the role of a service provider forexternal investors and lacks either a coherentpolicy or the means of its implementation(Heeg, 1998). Haussermann and Kapphan(2000) even comments on the complete ‘disap-pearance of politics’ in this vein.10 While the‘Planwerk Innenstadt’ (1996) serves as the rhe-torical doctrine for all future projects, realityproduces much more pragmatic compromisesand private investors are accorded unusualplanning freedom.

The case study of ‘RAW-Tempel’ exempli-fies the positive development potential of aspace without defined function in a status ofwaiting; and the chances for sustainablebottom–up development arising from givenconditions. The area of ‘RAW’ covers about10 ha and was until 1993 used for the repairand storage of trains. At its peak, it employed

more than 1200 workers. More than 100 yearsof continual industrial use left a densely builtenvironment construed as a ‘city within thecity’: buildings once used for administration,a former doctor’s surgery, a gas station andseveral large construction halls are lined in arow along a stretch of piazza-like cobblestoneground (Figures 4 and 5). Comparable withthe ‘Makasiini’, the abandoned site of‘RAW-Tempel’ has initially been reappro-priated by pioneers from the independent artscene who were attracted by “the atmosphereof secrecy and enchantment” (Weigert, inter-view) and had the clear objective of providing‘free’ space for the establishment of culturaland social projects on a secluded site. Unlikethe case of Helsinki, a strong non-commercialregistered association (‘RAW-Tempel e.V.’)was founded as early as 1998 in order toprovide an organisational and legal frame-work for the diverse projects occupying thesite. Due to this organisational shelter, theillegal status of occupation almost immedi-ately transformed in a temporary lease

Figure 4. The RAW-Tempel site plan (in black): the train tracks of Warschauer Strasse station form abarrier to the south, while the northern part is separated from adjacent residential areas by a strong wall.

Source: Tu Berlin and Nexus (2002) Urban Catalysts. Berlin site analysis.




agreement with the property owner at the time(EIM, a daughter company of the GermanRailways) with the Cultural Office of Frie-drichshain taking the position of an intermedi-ate tenant of the site and then letting the spacefor a symbolical rent to the association. Theassociation engages in internal conflict man-agement and serves as a public interface, butdoes not exert an influence on the ‘content’of single projects or the overall developmentof the site. Thus, the space has rapidly beencolonised by diverse initiatives and individ-uals from the districts of Friedrichshain andKreuzberg and has over a period of onlythree years evolved as an open ‘parallel uni-verse’, a complex entity still relatively freefrom economic and spatial constraints wherea radical pluralism flourishes. At present,this unique site is used by more than 40different socio-cultural projects both fromthe professional and experimental scene; itfunctions as a major stabilising element forthe neighbourhood and offers a high degreeof social inclusion. Less politicised and moreaccessible to the public than remaining squat-ter initiatives in adjacent Rigaer Strasse, “thisis an incredibly tolerant space, this is thequality of it all” (Raab, interview). Projectscover youth work, integrative activities for

the long-term unemployed and a theatre runby homeless people. More than “a mereartist’s colony and a cultural incubator”(Weigelt, interview), ‘RAW’ is also animportant venue for political debate andseveral Berlin-based grassroots initiatives. In1999, the first ‘Bottom–up Conference onPoverty’ was held on the site. Also, thespace has emerged as a tremendous sociallystabilising element for the district

There constantly emerge fields of tensionwhich can be alleviated with a space likethis one where it is still possible to do some-thing with very little money (Kaufmann,interview).

From an initially unhampered existencefavoured by political support from the districtauthorities, the status of the site becameincreasingly precarious with ownership beingtransferred to an offspring company of theGerman Railways in 2000. Vivico GmbHfunctions as an investment company and hasthe mission to exploit former railway landunder full profit maximisation. This transfer-ral of ownership coincides with the aforemen-tioned development pressures on the ‘urbanbathtub’ of the Upper Spree area and marksthe planning for the commercial exploitation

Figure 5. The cobbled courtyard area: this huge area of space, currently a public meeting place, is beingthreatened by plans to construct a traffic route which would cut it in two.




of the site of ‘RAW-Tempel’. A feasibilitystudy commissioned by the new propertyowner thus foresees the construction ofoffice and retail developments at high buildingdensities with only minor preservation of theremaining industrial structures. Despite thefact that this proposed concept of ‘themedleisure and services’ has not been adoptedby the District Council and the potential forimplementation of the envisaged wholesaledevelopment was only minor given the veryunfavourable investment conditions, thetemporary lease contract was prematurelycancelled in 2001 leaving the association of‘RAW-Tempel’ in a quasi-illegal status onthe site. Clearly, the presence of the ‘tempor-ary’ users was viewed as a disturbance to begot rid of and an impediment to further devel-opment proposals by the new propertyowners.

The immanent threat posed by the cancella-tion of the lease has stirred up activists and acircle of local supporters demanding to beincluded in the forthcoming planningprocess. Unlike in the case of Helsinki, theactors striving to preserve the ‘creativechaos’ of the site are ‘insiders’—namely, aproject partner of the RAW-association,‘workstation’. This association set up astrong civil initiative with the aim to elaboratealternative plans by applying radical planningpractices which would safeguard presentactivities and their function within the neigh-bourhood. The main philosophy of this initiat-ive is made clear in its programme whichasserts that

Bottom–up urban development may notdepart from form, but has to develop aprogramme which opposes content to theanonymous spatial production of commer-cialised containers (Ideenaufruf, 2002b,p. 3).

‘Ideenaufruf’ (‘Call for Ideas’) undertook acitizen survey among 1800 people in theneighbourhood, issued a public call forideas and organises fortnightly debates andnumerous workshops on themes of sustain-able urban development. This platform hascontinuously striven for a dialogue with the

developer and all other parties involved inthe process. As a flexible but increasinglyprofessional forum for intervention (unitingresearchers, architects, interested citizensand the tenants), it has eventually also suc-ceeded in addressing its claims via formalchannels. Within the planning competitionprocess held in 2001, ‘Ideenaufruf’ thusemerges as a highly influential externalcounsellor. The winning entry of the compe-tition eventually reflects, as a result of thispertinent intervention, important changes tothe original one-dimensional feasibilitystudy: It clearly acknowledges “the residualspace as a physical breeding-ground for thedevelopment of sustainable urban structures,cultures and networks” (Ideenaufruf, 2002)which risks being destroyed by the builtconceptions of traditional urban planningprocesses. The new plan allows for aprocess-oriented development of the site, apiecemeal exploitation drawing on the poten-tial of the ‘temporary’ uses and advances theintegration of ‘soft tools’ in the planningprocess (providing for the continuous partici-pation of civil actors). However, the newplan is problematic for the temporary usesdue to the fact that its non-fixed conditionsequally allow for a rapid development ofthe site once favourable investment conditionsare provided. The current ‘success’ achieved interm of a more sensitive development of aspace offering a complex social and culturalnetwork appears thus very much to be contin-gent on the weak economic situation in thearea which makes rapid change impossible.The future of this ‘indeterminate’ space andthe further presence of the projects on thesite are thus wide open. Notwithstanding thisambivalent evaluation, the platform ofexchange created in the course of the conflictbetween planning aspirations and ‘grassroots’claims seems to be a persistent one. Extensivenetworks to similar projects have been createdand a city-wide discussion on the potential oftemporary uses for sustainable urban develop-ment has been initiated between developers,‘users’ and the city authorities. This againcan be considered to be an asset for futurescenarios.




‘Leopold Station’, Brussels: ‘La Gare n’estpas perdue!’

A Benjaminian thought: Brussels is moder-nity in a state of ruin, beyond the pointwhere one might still believe in somethinglike complete salvation. Optimism, there-fore, is out of place, and certainly theutopian belief in wonders or miracles. Adying city has no need for quacks: itneeds painkillers and nurses (R. Laermans,1999, p. 301).

The third and final case study included in thisresearch is slightly different, not least becauseof the very ephemeral nature of the activitycovered. The case study relates to the aban-doned train station situated adjacent to theEuropean Parliament complex in Brussels’Leopold quarter (Figure 6) which becamethe setting of a three-month-long ‘illegal’

and, in essence, cultural occupation whichprovoked important repercussions on theplanning and political agenda in an urbanenvironment characterised by a particularlypronounced stalemate situation as regards itsdevelopment plans and the opposing claimsof the inhabitants.

Brussels’ ‘Quartier Leopold’ epitomisesthe massive upheavals the city has undergonesince the 1960s as a consequence of the strongquest of the local elite to transform the cityinto an international ‘capital of adminis-tration’. Within the context of a highly frag-mented and inefficient planning system(Corijn and de Lannoy, 2000) almost devoidof participatory possibilities and a Kafkaesquepolitical and administrative domain, the infa-mous process of ‘Bruxellisation’ has all toooften led to an urbanisme sauvage. 11 Its dis-astrous consequences for the evolving city as

Figure 6. The ‘Quartier Leopold’, Brussels, seen in the wider context of the area of Jourdan-La Chasse.Source: VUB, Geografisch Instituut.




sustainable habitat is particularly evident inthe Leopold Quarter. Originally a sociallydiverse neighbourhood comprising a mixtureof residential, small commercial and culturalfunctions, the Leopold Quarter has experi-enced a radical spatial and social reconfigura-tion during recent decades. The installation ofthe Centre International de Congres, underwhich official guise the development ofthree massive modules of office space washandled until its inauguration as the EuropeanParliament in 1993, has entailed a mono-func-tional restructuring bonanza brought forwardby a monopoly of diverse operations compris-ing European and national decision-makers,post-modern architects and private investors.The office space increased from 317 000square metres in 1960 to 2 800 000 squaremetres in 2000. The number of inhabitantsin the European quarter decreased by halffrom 49 500 in 1970 to 24 700 in 2000(Corijn, 2004). With the construction of theEuropean Parliament, 32 per cent of totaloffice space of Brussels was located to thearea of the Leopold Quarter (van Wunnik,1996). The installation of associated lobbies,diplomatic representations and other inter-national bodies in the neighbourhood hasresulted in an increase in commuter trafficby 40 per cent and an on-going neglect ofarchitectural heritage due to waves of realestate speculation. The ‘internationalisation’of the area is furthermore evident in anextreme reconversion of traditional commer-cial structures and a rhythm of activityadapted to an office clientele (Pierard, 1999).The complex of the Parliament itself formsan almost ‘extraterrestrial’ presence in theneighbourhood. The provision of all necessaryfunctions inside the complex makes it a closeduniverse and its esplanade (la dalle) is a roughand deserted no-man’s land after office hours.There never has been a coherent policy at thelevel of the communes or the Brussels regionto manage this extreme transformation,let alone a public body or an institution pos-sessing the mandate and power to ensure co-ordination between property needs and otheractors (Co-ordination Europe, 1995). As aconsequence, the neighbourhood has seen a

long history of its inhabitants’ struggles forthe preservation of vital urban fabric and thecontainment of hitherto uncontrolled develop-ment. The resistance against the ‘Euro-saga’has predominantly been assumed by theresidents’ association, the Association duQuartier Leopold (AQL). Since its foundationin 1987, this organisation has continuouslyintervened in the development process byemploying an impressive array of legalmeans, scientific experts and urbanistic tools.Even though it is the only residential associa-tion in Brussels to have achieved a legallybinding agreement with the main consortiumof developers—the Societe Espace Leopold(SEL)—and thus stands for an extraordinaryquasi-professionalisation in the field, therecourse to juridical and constructive meanshas proved highly unbalanced in the contextof the developmental dynamics of the area.To date, SEL has not implemented the con-tractual agreements of the Accord Cadre of1988.

The remnants of Leopold Station—the firsttrain station to be built in Belgium (1858) andretained on the Parliament site as an afunc-tional, nostalgic phantom in the wake of theconstruction of the European Parliamentcomplex—had become for many the transcen-dental image of the modernist forces impact-ing on the city. As Coussement states

This almost surrealist image hurts due to thebrutal contrast between two different eras,two scales, two functions of a city changingfrom a provincial into a European capital(Coussement quoted in Demey, 1992).

The symbolic connotation of the residualLeopold Station was fully taken advantage ofwhen the abandoned building was festivelyappropriated by the cultural collectiveBruXXel.org in October 2001 (see Figure 7).Individuals and associations from variousartistic, political and social domains and fromboth the French and Flemish communities ofBrussels formed this loose grouping. Themain actors behind BruXXel.org—“verymixed people with equally mixed aims”(Brees, interview)—are Cinema Nova, an inde-pendent cinema entirely run by volunteers and




City-min(e)d, a socio-cultural association pre-dominantly engaged in temporary urban artisticinterventions and with a strong vision of sus-tainable urban development. The originalmotive of the collective was to organise aseries of critical actions in view of the imminentEU Summit in Laeken, at the end the BelgianEU presidency in December 2001. The objec-tive thus aimed at, with the occupation of thestation building, was the creation of a ‘freezone’ in an area declared as an official and inac-cessible zone neutre for the time of the Summit.However, this civil establishment of an“alternative info-point in the heart of Euroland”(BruXXel.org, 2001) coincides with a highprofile phase in the further development of theneighbourhood. At the time, the highly contro-versial decision on the extension of the Euro-pean Parliament complex by two additionalmodules D4 and D5 was still pending, butcoming under increasing pressure for deliveryby the developers and the European Parliament.

The extension to the three current moduleswould provide a further 38 000 square metresof offices and 11 000 square metres of infra-structures on the European Parliament site andimplied the total demolition of LeopoldStation. The project had already been given acertificat d’urbanisme by the Commune ofIxelles in 1999; however, since the Communewas not able to handle the dossier (inthe sense of obtaining major modificationsfrom the developers SEL), it delayed thedelivery of the building permit and transferredresponsibilities to the Brussels Region.

The initial aim of the occupants thus soonincreasingly and complementarily shifted tothe contradictory dynamics of the planningprocess highlighting the plans for the finaldemolition of the station building itself, withthe maxim ‘Se poser sans s’opposer’ (‘Beingpresent but not being against’). For the follow-ing three months, the station was transformedinto a lively and open space of “rencontres,

Figure 7. The occupation of Leopold Station, Brussels, October 2001.




debats, information and convivialite”(BruXXel.org, 2001). The cultural scene con-sisted of a continuous and versatile program-ming of artistic performances, public debatesranging from immigration policies to ecologi-cal issues and various socio-cultural events.These activities went beyond the builtenvironment of the station: BruXXel.orgorganised several street-based actions in theneighbourhood, ‘Monopolville’ (posters cari-caturing notorious Brussels-specific urbandevelopment practices) and a ‘Reclaim thestreets’ parade through the neighbourhoodsof St Gilles and Midi. With the objective of“keeping the space as open as possible andas closed as necessary” (Brees, interview),strikingly new elements were introduced tothe setting of ‘Espace Leopold’ and the monu-mental aesthetics of la dalle, a former non-space serving merely as a passageway fromnulle part a ailleurs (from nowhere to some-where else). These elements appeared in adifferent light and manifested a successfulredefinition of inhabited public space and thelived-in city. In the derelict train station, afleeting space was thus created that is bothlocally rooted and globally connected and inwhich the participants demand both the rightto their locality and recognise the widersocial and political issues at stake.

Somewhat symptomatic of the chaoticplanning context of Brussels, this ‘illegal’occupation gained open support from themunicipality of Ixelles, governed by a pro-gressive coalition with the Green Party asthe strongest fraction. Owing to wide mediacoverage and the occupants’ strong publicpresence, the action led to a powerful, fleetingcoalition of inhabitants and diverse Brussels-based associations opposed to the furtherextension of the European Parliament’s infra-structure. By means of a substantial, but ratherunusual, intervention in urban politics, the‘external’ collective subsequently engaged ina game of playful diplomacy and ‘statementsagainst statements’ forcing all the actorsinvolved in or affected by the planning ofD4 and D5 to debate openly the variousissues at stake. The main matters of disputehighlighted by the occupants and the public

debate concerned the actual legitimisation ofthe extension, the conservation of the histori-cal station, an improved spatial integrationof the whole complex and the provision ofpublic facilities for the inhabitants of theLeopold Quarter. The daily turmoil createdby the occupation in the immediate vicinityof the European Parliament (EP) led to pro-nounced internal divisions within the insti-tution. Several hundred MEPs signed apetition in favour of the preservation of thestation and a re-examination of the planningfor D4 and D5. This resulted in a uniquepublic meeting between AQL, the developersand representatives of the EP in February2002. In the course of these events, the Euro-pean Parliament as the main actor behind thedevelopment process in the Leopold Quarterwas forced to appear publicly for the firsttime, to declare its interests and to takeaccount of the criticism voiced by the neigh-bourhood and Brussels’ inhabitants. The tran-sient and non-dogmatic character of theintervention by these informal actors of BruX-Xel.org, based on an almost carnivalesqueambivalence, was manifested in the finalending of the occupation: when there was noscope for further substantial changes, theoccupants abandoned the matter and left thepremises in a festive parade.

What, then, have been the changes to theurban agenda that this extremely transitoryintervention has provoked in the context ofthe Leopold Quarter? Approached in quantifi-able terms, the findings might seem unsub-stantial and tend to support the argumentthat it was a “mere symbolic effort of the tem-porary, fun versus zero concrete results” (Peti-tions Patrimoine, interview). The finalbuilding permit was decided upon by theBrussels Region in March 2002 with onlyminor amendments to the proposed plan bySEL: the remaining ‘shell’ of the station(Figure 8) will be flanked by two officeblocks of 38 000 square metres. The predomi-nant issues raised by voices opposing thedevelopment are acknowledged merely asnon-binding notes in the document. TheCommune of Ixelles, however, considers theamendments to be an outstanding success: it




has received 4.2 million Euros in compen-sation for the planning and SEL is nowlegally and financially obliged to deliver theagreements made in the Accord Cadre in1988 (which stipulates the provision of42 800 square metres of residential functionsfor the neighbourhood). Beyond this tangibledimension, however, there are a number ofpositive changes to be discerned. First, withthe profound disorder created by the tempor-ary appropriation of the residual station, an‘old dossier’ has been brought back into thepublic and political domain for discussion.Secondly, the intervention exceeding theimmediate local context has, due to its uncon-ventionality, created a space of communi-cation between different actors in frictionwhich had not existed before. Furthermore,the city-wide ‘urban meaning’ with whichthe station and its surroundings wereendowed during the occupation, has reignitedthe debate about the poor public quality of theParliament’s dalle and has engendered con-siderable political impetus for its transform-ation into a more open, animated space.Thus, a rather new and to a certain degreenon-planned means of civil interventionmarking a convergence between the ‘cultural’and the ‘urban’ in the planning process hasprovoked dynamics and results not evidentin the context of the Leopold Quarter. Withthe strong articulation of ‘external’ voices, aformerly deadlocked situation marked by a

rigid opposition of two antagonistic positionshas been reactivated/transformed into aforum of dialogue and a new focus on possiblesustainable development scenarios for thearea gained in exposure at a city-wide level.

Discussion: The Need for Free Zones

First, the three case studies presented reflectthe reappropriation and the qualities of thesubsequent transformation of the ‘indetermi-nate’ spaces chosen—what, for example,Sandercock conceives of as a form of ‘insur-gent urbanism’—an intervention that

embraces uncertainty as potential spaceof radical openness which nourishes thevision of a more experimental culture, a moretolerant and multifocal one (Sandercock,1998, p. 120).

The three cases present a different time scale.In Brussels, the intervention was meant to belimited to the end of the Belgian presidencyof the EU; in the two other cases, the actionlasted much longer. The former was immedi-ately oriented to agenda-setting; the latterwere more oriented to imposing a set ofactivities. The level of organisation was alsovery different—from a temporary association(Brussels), to a more durable collective activity(Helsinki) to a formal and legal organisation.These different types of organisation deter-mine the level of ‘legality’ and acceptance.

Figure 8. The remnant of Leopold Station in 2002, seen from the entrance of the European Parliament.




But it has to be stated that the main actorsdetermining the ‘legal’ status of these typesof actions are both the local authorities andthe proprietors. They determine whether thetemporary activities are repressed or not.The longer the action takes, and with thefirst obstacles arising, a broader field is incor-porated: the neighbourhood and sympathisersare informed, consulted and mobilised. It isthrough such coalition-building opposing the‘official’ planning that an agenda-setting isobtained, that the informal actors becomeplayers in the public debate.

The distinct structures created in thesespaces reclaim the main elements ofLefebvre’s (1991) ‘differential’ space: it is aspace created and dominated by its usersfrom the basis of its given conditions. Itremains largely unspecified as to its functionaland economic rationality, thus allowing for awide spectrum of use which is capable of inte-grating a high degree of diversity, and staysopen for change. In the three cases presented,a kind of ‘urbanity’ is produced in which the‘lived’ and the contradictions that constituteurban life are nurtured, their deliberate juxta-position allowing for a more complex visionof development than is evident in theirimmediate urban surroundings or in the uni-dimensional planning proposals to whichthese areas are subject. The cases are notmerely examples of bottom–up planning. Inthe first place, they do not struggle toimpose an alternative plan or project. Theywant another type of public debate. In thesecond place, the metaphor of ‘grass-roots’versus ‘top–down’ continues a hierarchicalmodel of planning in which the ‘top’ is con-sidered to have a clear agenda. In fact, thecases show that the conflict initially turnsaround agenda-setting and methodology,around the way the problem is described.The urban actors studied all wanted thefutures of the places to derive from morecomplex urban thinking and to be based on amore hybrid coalition. Rather than ‘bottom–up planning’, the actions have to be under-stood as creating platforms to attract differenturban actors and as searching for coalitionsand synergies that lead to a more adequate

diagnosis and possibilities for new ways ofthinking. They want to offer an encounterbetween different elements of the fragmentedand segmented polis that can no longer be ade-quately categorised in terms of clear-cut inter-est-groups. It is the planning approach as suchthat is challenged.

This more ‘complex’ vision reclaimedrevolves, in general terms, around the needfor uncontrolled, non-commodified placesthat are socially sustainable and capable ofintegrating a mix of socio-cultural, economicand political activities. It is a claim for ‘freezones’. “Theorising about freezones hasbeen limited” (Urban Unlimited, 2004, p. 4).In research about free zones in Brussels andRotterdam, carried out by an internationalteam in which we collaborated, the theoreticalweaknesses are related to the paradoxesbetween temporary free-zoning in real spaceand the permanency of imaginary free-zoningurban networking, between planning and crea-tivity, between structure and emptiness. Wehave indicated four planning misconceptionsrelated to ‘planning’ such free-zone activities(Urban Unlimited, 2004, pp. 14–15): creativeenvironments do not spring into being as aresult of top–down measures; nor are theypart of government aids to sub-cultural activi-ties; but they occur in the temporary lack ofplanning; and, they are not in the first placepart of the competition between cities toattract creative clusters. The cases studied inthis article confirm these conclusions.

Furthermore, the dimension of the city as a‘collective historical memory’ emerges;residual structures, even though stripped oftheir actual functions, provide the mentalbase and specific aesthetic qualities forfurther activities that incorporate their preser-vation. Regarding the notion of ‘public space’reflected by these spaces, a complex publicrealm is being created where new relation-ships with the ‘public’ are forged which areless instrumental, but more qualitative thanis the case in most institutionalised forms ofarts and culture: access is more equal sincelargely detached from economic imperatives.In all these characteristics, the configurationof the ‘urban’ as encountered in the three




cases appears as one which reclaims a certaindegree of what Haussermann and Siebel(1987) describe as moglichkeitssinn (‘senseof possibility’): by leaving certain thingsundefined and open for the future, space isprovided for the co-existence of multipleactivities and encounters.

The articulation of the urban conflict thatevolved around these sites first of all highlightsthe lack of efficient democratic participationinherent in the strategies of urban renewaland instruments of big-city politics. Further-more, it sees the formulation of a substantialcritique against one-sided visions with detri-mental side-effects for the sustainability ofthe urban realm. In current academic discus-sions, urban initiatives are often criticised fordefending particularistic interests or privilegesat the expense of more universal social justiceorientations which were at the centre of urbanmovement struggles during the 1970s and the1980s. However, in the three cases researched,the involvement of ‘informal’ actors is charac-terised by the formation of fluid platforms of‘defence’ that are composed of participantsfrom across different segments of societywhose action repertoire goes well beyondthat of the infamous ‘NIMBY’ fraction ofurban movements. Transcending particularcommunity interests or the mere preservationof the status quo as concerns the builtstructures, these actors address the wider fra-mework of urban politics and urban develop-ment schemes in the city. The means appliedin order to voice their claims equally testifyto a wide scope of intervention: they includedirect action in order to gain public attentionand media coverage, independent analysis ofurban problems and the demands for partici-pation in the relevant decision-makingboards. The civil stakeholders involved in theactivity or debate around the cases are notclearly definable in straightforward terms asto a coherent ‘identity’, but rather by theirinvolvement in the space itself.

Striking in this respect is the fact that, eventhough their objectives are set in opposition tothe dominant planning prerogatives and theinstitutionalised domain, they do not take aresistant or reactionary stance, but rather a

deliberately transformative stance that isguided by non-material considerations. Thisconstructive ‘project identity’ in turn allowsfor rather unusual coalitions to emergewhich may also include actors from the localpolitical sphere or city planning (as has par-ticularly been observed in the examples ofBrussels and Helsinki). Apart from a quasi-professionalisation evident in the drafting ofalternative re-use plans or in the interventionin the planning process, the issue of network-ing with different actors (socio-culturalassociations, academia, representatives of themedia) on a city-wide level becomes one ofincreasing importance. These actors are ableto cultivate and communicate a vision ofdevelopment and become part of the planningprocess; they contribute, as is particularlyevident in the cases of Helsinki and Berlin,to the revalorisation of the spaces but at thesame time are faced with a situation inwhich the mainstream planning system risksimpacting negatively on the inherent qualitiesof these sites.

What then are the pre-conditions for‘success’—i.e. when do these ‘bottom–up’claims on urban development stand a chanceof altering the planning proposals in tangibleterms? As obvious in a comparison betweenthe three cases researched, only in the caseof Berlin did the actors manage to intervenedecisively in the further development ofthe space, managing to ‘secure’ its qualitiesfor the time being. The conditions for thispartial ‘success’ story, however, appear to bevery much contingent on the present negativeinvestment conditions and the relatively lowprofile of the area in which RAW-Tempel isembedded. Here, the planning regime isfaced with a situation (pronounced effects ofthe ‘shrinking city’ and low private invest-ment levels) in which current urban realitycan no longer be handled adequately with tra-ditional planning instruments. A problematiceconomic situation for planning arrangementsthus favours ad hoc flexible decision-makingprocedures and compromises. If civil actorssucceed in seizing the opportunities providedby the new and fragmented political arrange-ments, they may influence the concrete




shape of the post-Fordist development path.Essential in these circumstances is thesupport gained from professional activistsand political advocacy groups who maketheir resources available and create ephemerallocal coalitions for the issues targeted.

In the cases of Helsinki and Brussels,however, real changes to the planningagenda as a result of civil interventions havebeen prevented by both the overdeterminedcharacter of these spaces in terms of theircentral location, and the relatively advancedand rigid planning process at the time of inter-vention of civil actors.

However, leaving aside their limitations,the ‘informal’ actors have contributed todemocratising the processes around issues ofurban development, even in the case wheretheir specific demands are not reflected inthe final planning status. It can be arguedthat the creation of a complex public spherefound in all three cases is not a mere ‘addedvalue’ of the struggles described, but theiractual significance to the urban agenda. Theurge to revisit abstract, authoritarian visionsof development has been fuelled and sustainedby a wide mobilisation of public support goingbeyond the ‘local’ and the confines of theactual spaces. It is this evolution whichhas the potential to initiate city-wide discus-sions touching upon more complex exigenciesthan the spatially delimited conflict encoun-tered. The creation of forums of activenegotiations between different stakeholdersin opposition is another important conse-quence to be mentioned in this respect.

In a condition where the setting of the urbanagenda can no longer be the expression of aharmonious consensus, the definition of apolitics and a form of city planning that canbridge the gap between these multiple hetero-geneities without repressing their inherentdifference and tensions is one of the biggestchallenges (Harvey, 2000). This ‘call’ for anew urban programme is faced with countlessdifficulties and obstacles to its realisationsince it runs counter to the established mech-anisms of city planning and would demandother, more participatory and sustainablepriorities for development than the one

dominating at present. However, the enablingside of sub-cultures where different, morecomplex notions of ‘urbanity’ are realisedand are brought up on the agenda is a firstand essential step towards change. Cities needto allow for the clustering of creativities andto consider the agendas emerging from suchinformal complexes. Places for such clusteringcan not be completely planned in ‘cultural clus-ters’ (Mommaas, 2004) or ‘breeding-grounds’.They strongly depend on the investment ofinformal actors occupying indeterminatespaces. The outcomes depend less on planningpractices than on the state of mind of urbanleaders. Urban development needs ‘freezones’, but they need also a certain freedomof zoning. They depend on the ways in whichthe urban vision allows things ‘to happen’.

Notes

1. The sites were chosen within the frameworkof an interdisciplinary post-graduate courseon ‘European Urban Cultures’ (POLIS),involving study periods in each of the threecities.

2. Helsinki: 11 interviews; Brussels: 8 inter-views; Berlin: 5 personal interviews andinformation from 6 interviews by NEXUSfor the exhibition “Innensichten” (“Viewsfrom inside”) May–June 2002.

3. Landry (1994): Helsinki as a living work ofart and Helsinki—towards a creative city.

4. As artist Katarina Katajisto states

For us, it had always been THE obviousplace to go. At that time, the culturalscene of Helsinki was very stiff and insti-tutionalised, allowing no room for other,more alternative activities. ‘Makasiini’was just an empty space where to go inorder to do something, a space forgottenby the people where the special atmos-phere meant as much to us as the location.

5. From a sample of 500 people interviewed, 93per cent knew of the presence and thelocation of the warehouses and more thanhalf reported visiting the space at leastonce a year (Manninen, 2001).

6. During the Cultural Capital Year 2000,however, the City of Helsinki fully exploitedthe potential of the site which was used asone of the main venues to promote ‘new’urban culture.




7. Its construction costs are estimated at 80–85million Euros. However, the project is finan-cially insecure due to the high annual main-tenance costs and cutbacks in publicexpenditure.

8. Oswald (Urban Catalyst, 2001) refers to theBerlin-specific phenomenon of urbanvacancies as ‘bathtub urbanism’—i.e. theexistence of massive stretches of wastelandsin the middle of the city. Some had beenoccupied by the Berlin wall and thus werenot available for development from the1960s, others were occupied by major infra-structure and industrial sites which havebeen abandoned due to deindustrialisationprocesses since the early 1990s.

9. ‘Media Spree’ is a recent project to developthe waterfront of the River ‘Spree’ into anew location for media-related industriesand services.

10. Berlin’s current fiscal crisis amounts to adebt of about 41 billion Euros. The percen-tage of unemployment is 18 per cent whichis a total of 317 000 people (2003).

11. A major factor preventing a coherent andtransparent urban planning regime in Brus-sels is the relatively high degree of auton-omy of the city’s 19 communes and thelack of a city-wide authority. At present,there is an ever-increasing fragmentation ofpowers and responsibilities.

References

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AUGE, M. (1992) Non-lieux: Introduction a uneanthropologie de la surmodernite. Paris: Seuil.

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Appendix. Further Sources

Helsinki

www.makasiinit.com (Makasiinit website).www.hel.fi/ksv/english/index.html (City PlanningOffice Helsinki).www.livady.fi (Architectural Office, design of there-use plan of the warehouses).

Berlin

www.raw-ev.de (website of RAW—Temple).www.friedrichshain-magazin.de (free journal onurban developments in the research area).www.urban2-berlin.de (website of the EuropeanDevelopment Programme Urban II in the researcharea).www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de (website oncurrent redevelopment projects in Berlin).www.workstation-berlin.org (project partner ofRAW e.V., initiator of the ‘Call for ideas’).www.scheinschlag-online.de (free independentmagazine on architecture, urban planning anddevelopment in Berlin).www.urbancatalyst.de (EU research project on thepotential of temporary uses in residual areas forurban regeneration).

Brussels

www.bruxxel.org (BruXXel.org, main organiser ofthe occupation of Leopold Station).www.nova-cinema.com (Cinema Nova).www.collectifs.net (website of different politicaland socio-cultural collectives based in Brussels).www.bralzw.be (Brusselse Raad voor hetLeefmilieu).www.citymined.org.www.recyclart.be.www.disturb.be (association of researchersengaged in urban debate).www.ieb.be (Inter-environnement Bruxelles).www.ixelles.be (Commune of Ixelles).




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2005 42: 503Urban StudJacqueline Groth and Eric Corijn

SettingReclaiming Urbanity: Indeterminate Spaces, Informal Actors and Urban Agenda

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