The Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum: Urban Planners, Property Developers and Fractious Left Politics in West Berlin, 1963–1974*

Abstract

Abstract During the early 1960s, elected officials and urban planners designated large swathes of West Berlin as redevelopment areas, most notably the district of Kreuzberg SO36. With the help of private developers, an underexamined group of stakeholders in urban planning, local residents were to be rehoused in spacious apartment blocks equipped with modern facilities. The construction history of the Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum housing complex is a classic yet understudied example of how public and private actors attempted to work together in the field of postwar urban planning. Soon after the plan was publicly announced, the public consensus on urban redevelopment altered. Criticism came from young professionals in the field of architecture and planning as well as neighbourhood action groups, who were eventually followed by public officials. This article investigates how and why the mood changed inside and outside the field of West German architecture and urban planning. Current historiography tends to neglect the role of private entrepreneurs in urban redevelopment efforts. By examining the politics leading up to the construction of the Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum, this article sheds a fresh light on the modus operandi of the West German welfare state on the local level and how it responded to bottom-up demands for democratization and transparency. The interaction between local authorities, commercial interests and the public is innovatively brought together into a single analytical framework by consulting a wide array of primary sources, most prominently articles by West Berlin’s alternative and mainstream press, architecture and planning journals and minutes from official meetings.