{"id":1125,"date":"2012-03-25T10:59:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T16:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2012-07-09T12:08:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T18:08:11","slug":"a-defeat-for-berlins-bmw-guggenheim-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1125","title":{"rendered":"A Defeat for Berlin’s BMW-Guggenheim Lab?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As long as we\u2019re revisiting topics from last August we can\u2019t ignore last week\u2019s big news that the BMW-Guggenheim Lab<\/a> won\u2019t be opening this coming May in the Kreuzberg<\/a> district of Berlin. Local activists mounted a vigorous campaign<\/a>\u00a0to stop the installation, and BMW-Guggenheim feared outbreaks of violence and vandalism.\u00a0 It was originally reported<\/a>\u00a0that the public resistance turned on worries that the project would accelerate gentrification of the area, producing\u00a0 higher rents, resident displacements, and new luxury developments.\u00a0 Another explanation<\/a>\u00a0links the popular protest to majority ownership of BMW by the Quandt<\/a> family, which has admitted to using forced labor during World War II<\/a> and whose current BMW operation is the target of a large trade union campaign.<\/p>\n

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Conceptual Rendering of BMW-Guggenheim Lab in Kreuzberg Vacant Lot (Spiegal Online)<\/p><\/div>\n

BMW-Guggenheim Lab organizers are now considering other sites in Berlin, including Prenzlauer Berg<\/a>. This district was originally identified as the Lab\u2019s location. \u00a0The area has been undergoing gentrification, however, and that might not send the best message to citizens<\/a> in Berlin and elsewhere who worry about what corporate-sponsored “pop-ups” portend for their neighborhoods. \u00a0Alternatively, how about an unused space near Potsdamer Platz<\/a>?\u00a0 Here, there\u2019s a bit of history (described in this blog last August<\/a>) for corporate-sponsored temporary building serving the cause of healthy public debate about urban regeneration and development. \u00a0That history might serve as a useful touchstone for getting “good city” conversations in Berlin off to a better start.<\/p>\n

UPDATE, April 7<\/strong><\/em>: Prenzlauer Berg gets the nod<\/a> as the relocation site.<\/p>\n

UPDATE, June 14<\/strong><\/em>: Much more discussion of this issue is at Guerilla Semiotics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As long as we\u2019re revisiting topics from last August we can\u2019t ignore last week\u2019s big news that the BMW-Guggenheim Lab won\u2019t be opening this coming May in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Local activists mounted a vigorous campaign\u00a0to stop the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-i9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}