Action 507

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In 1968 a group of young Berlin architects, assistants and architecture students met at the Technical University of Berlin under the name Aktion 507 (sometimes also group 507) . The meeting room in the architecture building of the TU at Ernst-Reuter-Platz was named after the event . The group consisted of about 120 people, of whom only a few are known by name as signatories of the manifesto.

The occasion was the preparation of an exhibition entitled “Diagnosis for Building in West Berlin” which was supposed to critically examine the building activity of that time. The exhibition also took place from September 8 to 20, 1968 in the architectural building of the TU in the shell of the extension planned by Hans Scharoun .

The background to the exhibition was an invitation by the AIV and BDA to the city's young architects to present their own work as part of the Berlin Bauwochen. In the context of the political mood of the time, however, the financial resources were not used for individual positioning, but instead initiated a critical examination of the official building activity in Berlin.

In addition to the exhibition, another public action by the group was a fundraising for the reconstruction of the Luxemburg-Liebknecht monument by Mies van der Rohe on the Landwehr Canal. However , the reconstruction did not go beyond a symbolic laying of the foundation stone on the day the New National Gallery opened .

Diagnosis for building in West Berlin

With the exhibition, the group exercised a well-founded criticism of the building activity in West Berlin in the 1960s. According to the group, this was characterized by a particularly close interweaving of architects, the Senate and the construction industry, who subordinated urban planning to their own economic and political goals without considering the city's residents. Their symbol was the partially completed Märkische Viertel , whose new residents complained about the lack of liveliness in the new area in the interviews conducted by the group. The fact that many of them were driven out of the inner-city areas of the so-called area redevelopment against their will was considered by the group as definitive proof that this form of urban development was about other interests.

In particular, the exhibition was characterized by the heterogeneity of perspectives and approaches, which included both social and spatial-aesthetic dimensions of urban life. The contributions dealt with “capitalist land policy”, but also the entanglement of those responsible, the “theoretical poverty” of the training and the urban development approaches of the Märkisches Viertel.

From today's point of view, it is remarkable that for the first time in the German post-war period, criticism of modern urban planning was not expressed by the conservative side, but by young representatives of the architectural community. It stands at the beginning of a changed view of the architects on the city, who no longer perceived it as a technical planning problem, but as an everyday living space. This included the rediscovery of the old building quarters as well as new approaches to planning based on the existing.

Exhibition manifesto

At the same time as the exhibition, an extensive manifesto was published which, as an anthology, contained some of the texts and representations of the exhibition. While the individual thematic blocks were not signed, a list of the signatories can also be found in the manifesto. This included some actors like Josef Paul Kleihues or Jürgen Sawade , who were to have a major influence on Berlin city politics in the following years.

The signatories of the manifesto included Hinrich Baller , Burkhard Bergius , Justus Burtin, Rolf Czeskleba, Mark Fester, Jonas Geist , Ute Jagals, Josef Paul Kleihues , Ingrid Krau, Nikolaus Kuhnert , Heiner Moldenschardt , Reiner Oefelein, Goerd Peschken , Günter Plessow, Kay Puhan-Schulz, Jan Rave, Jürgen Sawade , Jörn Schmidt-Thomsen , Michael Wegener, Hans Werhahn and Rüdiger Wormuth.

reception

At the same time, the exhibition and manifesto were also in the wider context of increasing public criticism of modernism, including in public media such as Spiegel and Die Zeit, and accordingly received a lot of attention in numerous contributions. In the context of this general paradigm shift, some of the former members were able to successfully deepen their work on these approaches even after the group broke up. This is especially true for Josef Paul Kleihues, who from 1979 as planning director of the IBA 84 was able to implement an urban planning paradigm for Berlin with the "critical reconstruction", which considered the historical urban form of the 19th century to be superior to modern urban planning and therefore aimed at urban repair.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marion Schreiber : Aktion 507 - Young architects criticize Berlin's building policy in: Die Zeit , Hamburg, year 1968, no . 38, p. 12
  2. ↑ Hartmut Frank : "All houses are beautiful, stop building!" In: Stadtbauwelt , Berlin, 74th vol., H. 80, 1983, p. 343
  3. ^ Ingrid Krau : Die Zeit der Diagnosen in: Stadtbauwelt , Berlin, 74th vol., H. 80, 1983, pp. 340-345
  4. ^ Editing : Stumpfer Stern in: Der Spiegel , Hamburg, Jg 1968, H. 39, p. 193
  5. ↑ Hans Stimmann : Residential Mountains for the New Society in: Die Welt , Berlin, March 23, 2008
  6. ↑ Unknown : Manifesto of Aktion 507 . Self-published, Berlin 1968.
  7. ↑ Editor : Slums moved to: Der Spiegel , Hamburg, Jg 1968, H. 37, P. 134-138.
  8. ↑ Helga Fassbinder : Counter-planning in: Stadtbauwelt , Berlin, 74th vol., H. 80, 1983, pp. 340-345