With: Poligonal – Agentur für Stadtvermittlung

1968, the year of social upheaval in the midst of a period of productive unrest and tensions between reform and revolt. The protests of that time have lastingly influenced urban development in Berlin in the following decades. In a quick run, we draw trajectories from the small but influential exhibition Diagnose zum Baugeschehen in Westberlin to Kreuzberg today, 50 years later. In between, there have been times of upheaval and reorientation. In the 1970s, protests resulting from modernist large-scale housing developments, massive demolition of old building stock, and housing shortages led to new approaches such as “Instand(be)setzungen“ and the competition Strategies for Kreuzberg. These efforts were continued in the 1980s in the careful urban renewal and the Intentional Building Exhibition 84/87 (IBA-Altbau). In this tour through Kreuzberg SO 36 we trace the influence of 1968 over time, explore their legacies for IBA-Altbau, and discover what these processes have left behind in the contemporary urban development.