An Interview with raumlabor

From the resurrection of waste to guerrilla public architecture, Collective Disaster’s projects are thoughtful and urgent interventions into public life. The team, made of up of ten core members dispersed across western and central Europe, confronts the reality of their lived experience, questioning the political, historical, and societal structures they inhabit through the resourceful engagement of the materiality and communities around them.

In the spirit of collectivity, a team of multiple voices wrote, rearranged, and reedited answers to questions from Sasha Amaya.

Sasha Amaya: I am super happy to be here. Thank you, really. I want to ask you a little bit about the history of raumlabor, and the structures and questions you work through when you are beginning a project, as well as how the overall architectural landscape is shifting. Then I would like to talk about four or so specific projects.

Jan Liesegang: I am Jan from raumlabor, a founding member of the collective, which roughly started in 1999. We began in Berlin, in an old fish store in the centre of the city, in Mitte. Some years after we were gentrified out; we also needed more space, so we moved to where we are now in Treptow Kreuzberg. I think we still have five of the original members. We started with just part-time activities in public space, mostly related to the situation of the city‘s many open spaces and a kind of re-unified Berlin. It was really a nice kind of uncertainty in that time, about what is possible and what is not possible. Becoming active in public space was an interesting learning ground. Slowly it became more professional through competitions, and some commissions we got from the city of Halle in the eastern part of Germany. Our first big commission was a development plan for a shrinking city with a socialist high-rise plan. Step by step our group grew more into an office, a professional working group. Right now we oscillate between 15 and 25 members in our collective.

SA: I am really curious to know a little bit more about your process. What are some questions your team has in mind when you approach a new project?

JL: The range of our activities is really quite wide, going from things you could call art or are situated in the art world to town planning commissions, and everything in between. Some topics are critical for us: a lot of our activity comes from the off-site, bottom-up initiatves helping people to become visible, become active in public space, or to just use spaces on a temporary level. From this practice we developed different tools and techniques, a specific way to look at the city as a place of action, participation, and as a possible place of imagination. After 20 years in practice, I would say on many levels we try to apply these techniques – these off-techniques – to different levels of cooperation with cities, with theatres, with institutions, and also with city planning agencies, or different administrations.

SA: Was that desire to bring alternative tools into different spaces always a clear goal? Or was there a moment when there was a shift: okay, these off-tools can work in these bigger, more institutionalised spaces and we have something we feel confident taking to yet another project?

JL: When we look back 20 years, a lot of what we do now, it was really existing. Terms like urban intervention, terms like temproary architecture — they didn’t exist. So in this zeitgeist of the first ten years of the new millenium, I would say, these kind of terms got established and became something you could ask for, that you could work with. We are part of that. I see us very much somehow in the forefront of this kind of movement, but there are also many others in Europe and also worldwide that started about the same time to think about these issues.

SA: I am curious now, it has been almost 20, 30 years you have been working with such interventions. What do you now see as the limits or the problems with these kind of interventions?

JL: Everything you do has limits. Somehow I think that the way we use public space and perceive public space has in this time really changed. Some people call it a Mediterraneisation of public life. When we were growing up the pubs, the bars, were inside. These activities weren’t on the streets. Now, people in Germany and many northern countries do many more things outside, including commercial activities. The things we propose and are able to do become a bit mainstream.

In general, I see the idea of temporary intervention as some kind of test of the possibilities for participation, and as something very positive. It is very hard to generate an interesting participation or creative participation process through just calling people for a meeting and showing them plans. It is a political debate, or a public debate, and this debate can be generated through an activity. In this sense I find many of the things we work with very successful and relevant.

Very often the question is when to leave a place. We very often feel it is not a big challenge to create an interesting place where people would like to meet and do activities: to create these places, at least for professionals, is a pleasure. But it is difficult to run places. On an institutional level, because things get boring, but even if we think about it more on a societal or citizen-driven approach to public space. How do you organise things so that over time [they continue to work]: who gets the key? Who takes responsibilities? So there we are still in the struggle.

In Berlin we have places we can take care of Floating, the Haus der Statistik, or even this building. But in other palces where we are coming in as artists that have been commissioned. You kind of burn this fire of energy and leave again, leave the space behind. This is alwaysa a challenge and often very not sustainable over a longer time.

Many of our projects start with a one week workshop and run for two years, and then extend for five years, and then they maybe die. But even five years is quite a significant period of time. Many of our interventions stay five to ten years, so this is also the question if this time period is still ‘‘temporary.’’ For example, if you think of the Palace der Republik which was in use for 12 years and then it was taken apart and debated for another 12 years and then torn down again.

This is also a topic around which we became more relaxed. At the beginning we were always asked this question: wouldn’t you reather want to build something permanent? And now we do both. For example, this swimming pool we just planned in Sweden which is supposed to be there forever, but it will also not be there forever. It is important that things make sense, it doesn’t really matter so much how long they stay.

SA: It is an interesting question, as much of the dialogue is about temporary structure, fine, but is this the way for a city to pay some young architects a small amount when they should be investing in infrastructure? So I do feel there is a bit of push back against temporary structures. At the same time, what you say about an expanded idea of the temporary or permanent, acknowledging that permanent structures won’t be there forever, is very interesting. It invites us to think about time and permanence more on a spectrum rather than as dichotomy. So it is interesting you are working in intervals of five years, twelves years, and more.

JL: Since World War II, we established a lot of regulations in these 75 years. And somehow we also appreciate that. When we think about sustainability it wouldn’t work without extremely regulated processes. But on the other hand, when you really work in architecture and building there are so many restrictions. You cannot do anything… following these rules would mean that so many of the architectural sturctures we love couldn’t have been built. It is almost not possible, at least not within a reasonable budget. So the temporary I also see as a breaking out of the framework of very strict rules. It is necessary to question these rules, and say why cannot we have that for longer? Or things that are lighter? Or more playful?

SA: I want to ask you about some concrete projects. With the Haus der Statistik project, I am curious about the hsitory of the site, how you got involved with it, the end goal, and what has been challenging and what has been a project.

JL: Although I am a very close follower, I am not involved in this project myself, so I can give you short but slightly wrong answers! I find this is a very unique intiaitive and what is unique about it is that the Haus der Statistik was ready to be torn down and a town planning commission already won by a very reasonable proposal from Augustin and Frank to build mostly houses. At the same time there was the refugee crisis, and a big housing crisis in general, as after many years of expectations, Berlin had finally started to grow — which was not the case after 89 — and the market suddenly exploded. In this context, this initiative to turn down reasonable buildings, office buildings but buildings in quite okay shape, was absurd.It was clear to the artists who tried to stop this with poster action, proposing that the Senat and local govenrment would create space for artists and refugees. This historical momentum some years made it possible that the local district government of Berlin Mitte, agreed it was a good idea — they liked it on Facebook! —  and this is when artists said maybe we can make it real.

This is where we came in and founded Zusammenkunft, a Genossenshcaft, a cooperative, a legal form more than just an association. This cooperative became a partner in the group of five: Sentat, the district, local housing, a housing company, Berlin real estate managment — normally players competing with different interests. A very professional and positive approach came from the ones who had initiated it, they were very smart how they operated in the political level and built-up trust. I find it interesting that it wasn’t an occupation but still claimed the place, not in going agressively. This led to an agreement that this group of five would develop this part of the inner city in a cooperatie way, which means they also have to agree on all the decisions. I don’t know if it ever happened at this scale before: iis very valuable land in the city centre. We were trying to create space for cultural and social acitvities and to take space actively from the market. To claim some space that would not be commercialised. In this sense I am a really big fan of that project.

SA: I find that quite funny that the momentum was sparked by a Facebook like.

JL: It was the mayor of the distrcit! It was a bit like, ahhhh he liked it, and then it became public, and this encouraged people, it created an open door, a possibility to make it real. I still feel like it is quite incredible that it happened, such an agreement between such different partners was made. Since my partners are working day and night on this, the conflicts, the different modes of operating, are still there. The Zusammkunft busy now with inbetween use and prioneer use, activation, a lot things going on, feels almost like the 90’s where a lot of things were possible. On the other hand ther eis a very strict plan from the real estate management, they already started building, we know that some of the most active parts of the house will be torn down next year, there is no doubt about it. So how do we get over this and will it really go on so smoothly or will it lead into ome kind of real conflict?

SA: It is like a historical microcosm, a reenactment but with a new possibility.

JL: Yes, it has a lot of similarities to cocupation movement of 60’s, and the legalisation process of 87, but it starts from another level of involvement, and a quite huge size of site.

SA: It is massive, and, as you say, it is central.

JL: It is quite nuts. And we all hope it becomes a role model and changes the city in a sustainable way.

This is also a case where temporary use is important, and it means this project does not become like any other project. The artists that are there now, they may not be able to be there in the future, but it is very important that they are there now, because they force you to see differently.

SA: For me this is one of the most beautiful aspects of raumlabor, the relationship between imagination and reification of an idea. A lot of art, achitecture, activisim does this, but in particular raumlabor seems to try to make the imaginary real. Which projects have you worked on that really have this relationship to you?

JL: Cantiere Barca, which I did with one of my partners Francesco in a suburb of Turino, is a good example of this. The site was a small, neglected building, a socialist government building renovated into a supermarket at a dead-end road. But a lot of informal activities happened there. At Cantiere Barca we held a one-week workshop, turning it into a place to be. When we were finished we made a big party and invited the whole neighbourhood; the politicians came, and it started a desire that it should continue as such. It became a series of four workshops, each one week, really trying to find a way to run this place, kept building,maintaining, improving it. We built a little house, platforms, and a stage. We began renovating the butcher shop and bakery.

We had this slogan some years ago ‘‘bye bye utopia’’ some years ago. In this we tried to find a relation to some of our heros from the 70’s. When I was young I always thought that in the near future we would live in a totally different society, so it didn’t matter if I studied sociology or architecture: society would be so different. We were interested a lot by equal chances, in equality, in socialist ideas. Not trying to compete with the DDR… but making some other world.

For us, probably a bit, with the fall of the wall, this idea that the future would be in another world kind of went away. We realised there was one world, and we are probably not able to change the entire world, but that we still need to look for alternative behaviours and procedures to solve problems and to act within this capitlist society, at least locally. This is why we started to talk about real utopias, or local utopias, and this too is what we tried to establish with Cantiere Barca.

I still think this is maybe the challenge of our time. The main problems we are dealing with now are global, but the power is local, the politics are still local. The economic power is global, but we are still operating on a local level — we have to find ways to connect that. We always do prototypes, and they can always be criticised because they are kind of working in a laboratory condition, but some kind of cultural funding doesn’t really exist in the real world of architectural economy, at least very often. Ideas like Haus der Statistik are nice because they try to scale this up, and I think this can really become a model for a different way to, more cooperatively, develop the city.

I have a lot of desires. I don’t have hope it will go through so easily. But I do have a lot of hope that it create possibility for a more sustainable way to have well being not based on more consumption. And trying to do things together also has a lot to do with a desire to find out what is really necessary to be happy.

SA: I am curious, hearing you speak, about your educational projects like Floating e.V. (formerly Floating University), which I know first hand, but also Unlearning Place and School of Tomorrow, as well as the urban field trips to the UK and other places. How does this educational partner fit in to what you do? How do you decide what to take on and who gets to be a part of it?

JL:  When it comes to an educational proejct I see in the centre an idea of learning together, recognising that if it comes to real problems of our times none of us have the answer right away. So the idea of someone standing in the front telling the others what to do might not be the most successful way to learn. To break these kind of hierarchies, this kind of learning, these projects develop different formats. With the Osthang project we had the idea of building the campus — we started with nothing, an abandoned garden — and we invited people to build a campus, a university, together, and to use it as and for a conference on living together in the future.

A more general view in raumlabor, ist hat we found we are teaching all the time. Some of us are professors like me and Christopher Markus, some are doing workshops, some are temporary at different universities. Then we do a lot of non-formal education. I do a project with artists of different abilites in Cologne where we develop a new artist house together.

In fact, we started to talk about an open raumlabor university, and one place where that went was Floating University, which became so sucessful that we forgot about open raumlabor university. Then we learned that we cannot call whatever we do University! So we have nothing left more or less! But the concept. So we have the Floating non-University (now Floating e.V.) and we have the neglected Open raumlabor University. It is all about this ambition to maybe make sense of the topics we talk about and to have discussions, but it is a lose kind of frame.

SA: I have so many more quesitons, but only ten more minutes!

JL: Choices!

SA: Right!?

JL: Hahaha!

SA: Many, though not all, of the projects raumlabor does are based in Europe. How do you deal with cultural and material realities that are quite different than that to which you are used? Do you spend a lot of time there before? What preparation do you do? Are you always working with partners?

JL: Normally, before corona, so to say, we would always try to go to places: spend time, hang out, find out. For the first raumlabor document, the town planning project I told you about in Halle, we rented an apartment in that city, stayed there, experienced how different it is — and through doing this we had some problems disappear while others emerged. However, we cannot always realise this research, this deep knowledge. Very often we rely on partners. In this sense, we are more like enablers: we create a space for someone, but the content becomes someone else’s responsibility, someone that we trust.

A project I have been working on in a very unresolvable cultural context for me was in South Africa. My partner went to Durban and came back and said they want us to do something in public space, but there, public space is contaminated with fear. When you are white there you feel so insecure in many ways, I didn’t even know if we should do something. But there were things he talked about that I was very interested in.

So I went there myself and found a partner in Durban, the Dala Collective, focused on informal transportation. People walk from former townships from the periphery of city to the centre. There is a belt to protect this city centre, usually an industrial belt populated by those of Indian descent. Those structures still there from racism create social segregation.

People walk two and a half hours to work in city centre, people who cannot even afford the informal buses, or maybe just afford to take the bus one way back. All these people walking on a track along the highway, around 20 000 people, walking really fast, these incredible bodies. We proposed to build a kind of station half-way to the city centre, quite close to a kind of junction where a lot of people hitch hike. The huge roof we created because a meeting place.

We weren’t able to overcome or extent this idea of patronising. It was still a colonial gesture, as Europeans going there, bringing some funding, and building something. We triedt o be honest about it in this way. Now, a lcoal church group is taking care of the space — not a church in the sense of a building, but a group of people who pray on the land nearby. It has not been damaged. It was also supposed to be temporary but now it is more than six years.

This may not be an answer to how you operate within a different culture, but it is very important to reflect on this.

SA: What kind of experience would you recommend for a young architect, an established architected, and a citizen? What kind of new experience now would serve you?

JL: I think it is very good to experience if you get involved in planning that you really experience how it becomes real. That you go through these processes where it becomes also political, where a drawing, a line, becomes a material. These are things you don’t really learn at university. When people come to our office at university, they make drawings, they look nice and proportional, but at some point they realise that every line, every point is a change of one material to another, it is very frightening.

The same happens when you operate in some kind of public. You can take Haus der Statistik as an example. You kind of experience restrictions and rules that are not only visible everywhere but also the kind of struggle to run a place and to negotiate complicated processes in a democratic way — or maybe an atorcatic way. It is also difficult to be the boss. It is not always the most efficient that everyone discusses. To really experience this in an open setting, I think this is a fantastic experience.

SA: This will lead me to my last question then, which is: what do you think the challenges are in this crisis moment of the world for arhictecture? What kind of challenges will be not so good? And what are the challenges that are the kind of challenges you look forward to?

JL: My view on production of space and this capitlatist system that we are using today is pessimistic. This has mostly to do with economy. In the building process there is mostly one party involved that is maximizing profit: by nature, the investor’s role is to make profit, and he tries to push the political level to make as much profit as possible, he tries to push the planner, the architect, he is always the one with the longest grasp. He only gets his returns if the project is executed. The participation and civic society can be very active in the beginning, but after five, ten years are tired and gone while this guy gets the money in the end (remains). I am not realy sure this can be changed within this structure.

What I think we need is a fair architecture. We need to take things off the market and produce space on different terms. This also means that workers get fairly paid and that companies are differently organised, and that profit is not going into financial markets and investors, but somehow kept locally or divided.

This means we need a whole alternative building industry, a different way of producing space. It has to be wanted. and i think there is a very good chance that some public entities will book this kind of space production. Many private people have the desire to have a house or build osmething but still don’t want to be part of this industrialised commercialised building indsutries. There are roles models for that to a certain extent in the housing groups that exist in Germany, the people that get together and develop something together, which is possible as long as they have enough money and that the market is not too high. But it is almost dead I think — we cannot afford this anymore.

I am quite optimistic that this idea that we will do things differently will become very strong in the near future. We could talk about different building processes—not only didfferent designs—and maybe even find a new name for them. Then suddenly form is not the only thing to discuss in architecture, but the whole pacakge, the idea, the social context— that would be a kind of very,very nice future, because then we would almost go back to the beginnings of modernism, where form was associated with the social ideas: a white box with holes in it was a heroic kind of thing. It was a fanstic moment to be an architect, I think: you felt like you were doing the right thing. We are very far form that right now. We have great architects today. education is incredible, there are many talented people out there, but then they get squeezed into these machines. Some still do fantastic things, some only on the formal level, but it is always a bit like hollow boxes as long as this conflict isn’t solved.

To learn more about the work of raumlabor, click here.