Case Study 1: Torstraße

from Exploring Space and Emancipation - Océane Vé-Réveillac

Emancipatory narratives

For the first case study, I will focus on a building ensemble constructed between 1984 and 1988 in the framework of a komplexe Rekonstruktion (complex reconstruction) in an East Berlin area called the Spandauer Vorstadt in Mitte district. The term complex reconstruction in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was used to describe a set of urban development measures in old residential areas that could include demolition, new construction and renovation of existing buildings. Several Wohnungskombinat1 (WBK) coming from Neubrandenburg, Schwerin, Potsdam, Erfurt, Cottbus and Frankfurt/ Oder were asked to come and work on the complex construction of the Spanduaer Vorstadt after a decision of the Politbüro2 in January 1984 (Dullin-Grund 2004). I will focus on the western segment of the former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, today Torstraße, from Oranienburger Tor to Tucholsky Straße, which was allocated to the WBK Neubrandenburg where Iris Dullin-Grund led the team. The program was mainly foreseeing new housing units with childcare facilities for 270 young children with shops and social facilities on the 1 In the GDR, a Wohnungsbaukombinat (WBK) was a state-owned housing cooperative that combined different enterprises operative in the housing sector. They were organised according to the East German territorial division. Iris Dullin-Grund belonged to the WBK Neubrandenburg. 2 Abbreviation for Politisches Büro (political office). The highest decision-making committee of the German Democratic Republic. ground floor. Where the existing perimeter blocks were left opened by war damages, the urban design extended and completed them. The urban guidelines resulted from a cooperation between the WBK Neubrandenburg and the urban planning team from the local WBK Berlin. The new buildings were assembled following the industrial and standardised building system called Plattenbauweise with the type WBS 70, which consisted of a montage of precast concrete panels. Since the beginning of the 1970s, this technique was massively used for new construction, and its aesthetic became the recognisable attribute of socialist cities beyond East Germany alone (Hannemann 2005). To understand and evaluate this project which was produced under under a repressive and authoritarian regime led by one single party called Sozialistische Enheitspartei Deutschland (SED), I will first enlighten the housing politics led by the SED in the 1970s and 1980s, which present the conditions in which the case study was built. Linking with the current situation, I will show how the case study is relevant today in regards to the right to housing in Berlin's context, more than thirty years after the Fall of the Wall. Secondly, I will investigate the aspects of spatial planning in the GDR from the perspective of women's emancipation and how it translated into the conception of the studied project. Furthermore, based

on spatial analysis and interviews with inhabitants, I will examine whether the present conditions of the case study bear emancipatory facets. Finally, I will explore what elements structured the domestic space in the GDR and, consequently, the dwellings designed by the WBK Neubrandenburg. Relying on observations during the visit to the dwelling and interviews with women inhabitants, I will look at whether the domestic spaces of the case study promote emancipation.

GDR's construction policies, a shift toward the historical city

In the GDR housing development was one of the main political instruments. After World War II, both competed to prove that their economies, capitalist or socialist offered better living conditions. Ideologically in the GDR, largely influenced by Friedrich Engels Wohnungsfrage (housing question), the provision of housing for workers was at the core of the state ideology and political agenda. In East Germany, the idea of modernity had to be achieved through collective efforts to attain social equalisation. This ideology was expressed in the built environment with the development of the Plattenbauweise, the industrial construction technology which allowed for fast deployment of brand new housing estates and an improvement of living conditions for millions of people.

In 1971, a vast calculation of the built dwellings in the past ten years demonstrated that the objectives concerning housing production were far from being reached. Efforts provided in the construction of new housing were colossal but due to the neglect and demolition of old substance in inner centers, this was highly counterproductive and the overall production was insufficient. The authorities reacted with a new housing program announced during the 8th Party Convention by the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Erich Honecker, who later reached 1976 the highest status of power in East Germany as the Chairman of the State Council. New town developments in the suburbs and renovation of the inner centre tenement building stock were now planned to answer the expected goals. The previous model in the centres consisted of large demolition and replacement of existing urban tissue with slabs and towers (Flierl 2007).

By the 1980s, as Florian Urban explained in his doctoral thesis (2006) about the notion of the historic city in the GDR, a significant ideological turn had occurred in the discourses about Mietskaserne building (rental barracks) from the late 19th century. These tenement buildings constituted most of Berlin's urban tissue and were constructed during industrial times to house the working-class. Whereas, in the early GDR years, they were seen as consequences of capitalist development and class oppression, by the 1980s, its preservation was favoured as a valuable heritage, being the birthplace of working-class culture and struggle. Finally, in 1982, the Ministry of Construction of the GDR published a new framework for construction called Grundsätze für die sozialistische Entwicklung von Städtebau und Architektur in der DDR (General Principles for the socialist Development of Urban Design and Architecture in the GDR). This text established the preservation of inner cities and enacted a new shift in construction policies that would last until the end of the GDR. Construction of vacant plots in the urban fabric along with modernisation and preservation of existing buildings was as crucial as new developments.

Fig. 7 - Site plan of former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, now Torstraße, 1986 (left page) Fig. 8 - Division of the former Wilhelm-Pieck Straße distributed to regional WBK, 1986 Fig. 9 - New buildings (white) and old /modernized buildings (hatched), 1985

A working-class neighbourhood repaired

In that context, the studied western segment of the former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße was part of a larger remodelling project of the Spandauer Vorstadt situated in the historical centre of Berlin and yet at its margins, 500 meters from the Wall. The building substance in the Spandauer Vorstadt was exceptionally spared from the damages caused by the bombardments. However, due to the previous construction policies that favoured new housing estates around Berlin, the existing tenement buildings were dilapidated. In the 1960s, the area was doomed to demolition. In Iris Dullin-Grund’s estate, stored at the Leibniz Institute in Erkner, I could find the panels and model photographs of a competition submission from 1976 regarding the Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, today Torstraße. In the urban design proposal, the blocks between the Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße and the parallelly running south street Linienstraße were to be demolished to extend the size of the street and create a large avenue with green spaces.

Initially, the Spandauer Vorstadt (suburb) developed north of a city wall that protected Berlin between the 12th and the 17th century at the Spandau gate. Along the former city wall, the first industrial factories in Berlin were established. The name of the Borsigstraße, a street running adjacent to the Torstraße, is a remnant from this time, as the still existing Borsig had its factory in the area. Hence, the neighbourhood developed around the factories through the expansion of Mietskaserne. As a product of land speculation, land owners developed plots with a maximum living area to make them more profitable. As Isabel Rousset explained (2021), the purposes were to concentrate labour in the city for the mean of industrial capitalist production and to ease land speculation. By 1871, 75 % of Berlin’s housing stock was made of tenement buildings (Rubin 2014). With this, large families lived in extremely cramped conditions, mostly in one single room, sometimes even renting out a bed for other workers during the day. This materialisation of capitalism took the shape of perimeter block buildings with decorated facades to hide social misery.

After the Second World War and the establishment of the GDR, housing was in the hand of the state, which took charge of the new development, care and distribution. Most of the collective housing properties were in state ownership or under state administration or building cooperatives (Schulz 2021). The main administrative housing instance in Berlin was the Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltung (KWV; municipal housing administration). Before the construction of new buildings started on the western part of the Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, an extensive program of roof repairing and chimney reparation was carried out. According to Manfred Zache (2014), a practising architect and city planner in East Berlin, this invisible work was a wonder since it completely contradicted the politicians’ eagerness for visual impact. In addition, he emphasised that these buildings would not stand today without this program.

A social enclave in a gentrified area

Today the area has undergone advanced processes of gentrification, as the study by the geographer Christian Krajewski (2006) showed. If one strolls in the former Spandauer Vorstadt in the Mitte district, it is filled with typical marks of gentrification, a mix of boutiques, cafés, gallery spaces and fancy bars. Consequently, real estate prices are high, and housing units are reserved for a rather exclusive upper-class population. Nevertheless, the studied segment of the Torstraße strikes with a noticeable change of atmosphere. Abruptly, from the fine dining Bandolsur-Mer restaurant, one walks by an information centre for homeless people. The typical Spätkauf (late-night shop), an affordable Vietnamese restaurant and an associative space for the Volkssolidarität3 appear on the streetscape. The social diversity one can read onto the street collides with the Linienstraße, one block further with people strolling with shopping bags or drinking a coffee latte at a café's terrace. This contrasted situation can be explained by the different financialisation processes that occurred after the Fall of the Wall.

After 1898, property structures changed again, and the expropriated properties had to be returned to their former owners or heirs. The sociologist Andrej Holm has written extensively about gentrification processes in Berlin (2006), and he explains that the restitutions to private owners quickly led to widespread privatisation and resale to professional real estate companies. After a sequence of cultural pioneer implementations attracted by cheap rents, then investments in the form of physical upgrading and displacement of low-income menage, Holm describes that the Mitte district is already in a phase of ‘super-gentrification’ which involve a boom of luxury housing construction (Bernt, Grell, and Holm 2013). In opposition, Plattenbauten like the studied ensemble on the Torstraße, were in state ownership and did not undergo similar processes. Either in the former West or East, the porosity of Berlin's social fabric - or the so-called Berliner Mischung (Berlin mix) - is still existing. There are quite a few situations in which certain building typologies combined with different kinds of public ownership or social protective planning regulations, clearly define social enclaves. In the case of the

3 The Volkssolidarität is an organisation for older adults. It offers activities and counselling like sports or computer help. Its foundation is traced back to the GDR and played an essential role in taking care of the elderly. It is also the place where I met the two interviewees after their sports class.

Fig. 10 - Regular floorplan of two 4-room-apartments and one studio, 1985

Spandauer Vorstadt this contrast is striking and shows well how the architecture and its administration can stabilise social relations. The ownership was passed onto newly created state-owned housing companies for most of the housing stock produced under the GDR regime. In 1991, the city of Berlin possessed 28% of its housing stock (Berlin and Investitionsbank Berlin 2002). By 2008, Berlin had started to privatise a large number of housing units to fall at 15,8% (Investitionsbank Berlin 2008). Nevertheless, under public pressure (Kotti & Co Collective et al. 2015) and a high shortage of affordable housing, the public housing companies started to buy back some estates at expensive market prices (Schönball 2017). In 2020, 20% of the housing stock was owned by the six state-owned housing companies (Investitionsbank Berlin 2021). Most of the buildings which were part of the complex reconstruction in Spandauer Vorstadt were transferred to the stateowned Wohnungsbaugesellschaft Berlin-Mitte (WBM). Therefore affordable rent prices and first-time inhabitants can be found in the studied estate.

The two women I interviewed, Ms F and Ms H4, have moved into the former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße just after its completion and confirmed paying low-priced rents today. They both are pensioners today and moved in with their husbands and children. Currently, Ms F lives alone, and Ms F with her husband. In the 1980s, Ms F moved into a 3-room apartment with two children and Ms H in a 4-room apartment with three children. Their children have moved out, and although they admitted having more room than they need, they affirmed that they cannot change their living situation. Presently, Ms H pays 800 euros each month with the extra costs. A smaller apartment anywhere in Berlin would cost her and her husband

4 The interviews took place on March 29th 2022, in the association space of the Volkssolidarität, located on Torstraße 190. The two interviewees wished to re main anonymous. more. Ms F affirmed that she could never think of anything other than her present flat also because of her small pension.

On the other hand, the account of the two inhabitants shows how their housing structures their life and contribute to their economic emancipation. In the case of the two inhabitants I interviewed, ownership was not an option. In the current neo-liberal market economy where ownership enjoys the highest protection and privileges, Ms F and Ms H, without their rental contract with a state-owned housing company, they could be exposed to displacement processes and economic insecurity. As women, they are economically more vulnerable. This marginalisation is particularly visible in the case of Ms F, that admitted not wanting to move since she would not find another home within the area where she lived for about forty years. The housing security provided by state-owned housing company lies in the protection from contract termination due to personal need or the conversion into private ownership, limited rent increase and a legal frame that requires support for tenants through advisory boards (Mieterverein 2013). In the case of Ms F and Ms H, it is possible to conclude that their housing situation encompasses the required elements of accessibility, affordability and security of tenure, which are the keys to emancipatory living conditions.

Looking back at housing provision in the GDR from our current housing crisis can provide compelling insights. The recent referendum about the socialisation of large housing estate ‘Deutsche Wohnen und co. enteignen’ (expropriate Deutsche Wohnen and co.) that took place in Berlin in 2021 gives evidence of the urgent need for a radical solution to a rising housing crisis in Berlin. The right to housing was enshrined in the GDR's constitution since 1949, and as previously analysed, housing was the driving question throughout the forty years of the GDR regime. Housing was considered an infrastructure that should be available to all and regulated by the state. Nevertheless, those goals were never met, and the housing shortage at the end of the GDR was still massive. Inequalities in housing provision existed, and as Donna Harsch investigated (2006), young nuclear families would have the priority to get a dwelling, leaving other household constellations in sometimes inadequate living conditions. Nowadays, the western segment of the Torstraße is surrounded by the effects of housing commodification; the still state-owned housing estate offers an infrastructure and creates a space that is relevant in the city for that, it resists what Peter Marcuse and David J. Madden called ‘residential oppression’ (Madden and Marcuse 2016).

A spatial planning that supported women’s access to work

The account of women’s emancipation in the GDR can be perceived as contradictory since it was a repressive regime. However, clear facts can assert a step toward women’s enfranchisement of men’s power. I will try to give a nuanced backdrop on women’s status in East Germany that will allow for a better assessment of the emancipatory potentials of planning in the GDR and of the case study planned by Iris DullinGrund. The ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee reminds us that the material situation of millions of women had improved under socialism compared to the period before the Second World War (2018). Generally, women lived longer, died less in maternity as did their newborns, and learned how to read. In East Germany, the SED acted according to a Marxist-Leninist ideology established on the preeminence of socialised production. It acknowledged that women’s oppression was grounded in a patriarchal society, and accordingly, the state implemented top-down equality for women and removed legal privileges of men over women. Women had access to maternity leaves, childcare, the right to divorce, and from 1972, right to abortion. Nevertheless, they had to participate in the production. Following the socialist ideology which assumed that through their status as wage workers, they would have access to social equality and emancipate themselves. On the one hand, the integration of East German women into paid labour was highly effective, and by the end of the 1980s, 91,2% of all women were employed and could not imagine their life without working (Budde 1997). On the other hand, due to the scarcity of working forces, the GDR was economically relying on female workforce. On a domestic level, gender relations remained still unequal. Housework and care for the family were performed primarily by women. In the working environment, women rarely made it to higher employment positions. They were suffering from what Maria Bucur called the ‘triple burden’ as a caretaker in the home, a worker and a participant in a socialist society (2016).

To understand how this state-imposed gender equality affected women’s lives, to investigate what characterised socialist planning is helpful. As Christine Hannemann analysed in her book ‘Die Platte’ (2005), urban planning was based on the assumptions that the state would take over some reproductive functions. All the family members would work full time, and domestic functions would be subject to greater socialisation. Considering the role of women in the labour force but also as the guarantors of reproductive work, socialist planning framework would foresee infrastructure that would assume child-rearing for women at work. Spatially, the general unit for planning called Wohnkomplex (housing complex) was designed for 4.000 to 5.000 inhabitants and based on an eight-grade school. Furthermore, all social facilities like school, kindergarten, shops and public transport which were assigned to a housing complex had to be accessible by walking. Although the studied case was integrated into existing urban tissue, these program principles were at work. Still, due to its unique status as a complex reconstruction and its location in Berlin, more means were at WBK Neubrandenburg’s disposal. As Iris Dullin-Grund wrote in her autobiography, ”for Berlin there was always something more, in the building limit and the architectural possibilities” (DullinGrund 2004). The program comprised 525 dwellings units, three gastronomy units, two units for associative uses, five shops, a collection point for reparation of electric devices, a collection point for the lottery, an office for the state-owned housing company and a combined childcare facility with 180 places in the kindergarten and 90 places for the crèche for the whole area of the Spandauer Vorstadt. For the urban layout, Iris Dullin-Grund explained in an article about the project that the guidelines aimed to complement the historical structure of the neighbourhood (1986). This idea is visible in the way the planned buildings extend and complete the typical Berlin perimeter blocks. The eave levels were taken into consideration by adapting the ground floor level to 3,30m height since the prefabrication of the elements could not allow a variation of the other floors’ height (Grund 1986). The project also distinguishes itself from the otherwise monotonous WBS 70 projects by using a variety of modules for the façade, like winter gardens and loggias. The design’s concept was to follow the aesthetic of the existing tenement house in their variety in shapes and heights, moreover the addition of an attic floor which was a technical challenge with the limits of standardised construction is noticeable. Additionally, all the dwellings had gas heating. With the extension of the perimeter blocks from the existing buildings, the previous narrow courtyard from the 19th century was replaced by a large one with playgrounds and spaces to dry the laundry. Iris Dullin-Grund emphasised when she wrote about this project how important it was for her, as in modernist architecture principles, to have proper daylight in each dwelling.

During my interview with Ms F and Ms H, they declared being satisfied with their living conditions since they moved in. Ms F mentioned that when she applied for a dwelling at the KWV, she was offered one in a large housing estate in the district of Marzahn at the edge of Berlin. She and her husband refused and later got an apartment on the former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße. Ms H always lived in the area and was born in the Linienstraße that runs parallel to her street. Both were working and their children went to the adjoining school on the same street. Ms F recalled going early to work, and her son would have to go alone to school and that he was proud to be a Schüsselkind (latchkey child). They repeated that everything was nearby, mentioning shops and transportation while saying shortly afterwards that ‘not really everything since not everything was to be found during the GDR’.

Currently, they value the diversity of shops around and mostly buy groceries at the Supermarket on the street. They only complained about a missing bank.

Regarding mobility, Ms H said she would moved around the neighbourhood walking but primarily used the car to go beyond. Ms F does not own a car and exclusively relies on public transport. The case study location is well connected between the train stations Oranienburger Tor, Rosenthaler Platz and Oranienburger Straße. Moreover, access to the tramway is close by, which used to be one of the significant local transportation systems in East Berlin. One of the economic reasons for the GDR to realise complex reconstructions in the historic city centre was the existing infrastructure. The large housing estates at the edge of Berlin were built quickly, but the infrastructure like the metro and tramway were not following fast enough. The case of Ms F illustrates the fact that women's freedom of movement depends on walk and use public transports.

Due to its particular conditions, the segment of the complex reconstruction realised by Iris Dullin-Grund with her planning collective has to be seen as a product of the late GDR concerns about renovating the old city. The political objective to achieve more housing, a scepticism towards modernist city planning, and an intellectual change in the perception of the historical city produced the maintaninance of the Spandauer Vorstadt's fabric. After the Fall of the Wall, it became a favourable location for its accessibility to transports and various infrastructures.

Domestic space structured by an unquestioned nuclear family model

The domestic structure of the socialist state of the GDR was based on a nuclear family with two generations. Donna Harsch showed that aligned with a Stalinist ideology based on production (2006), domestic necessity was seen as secondary, and its social meaning was denied. Even if production and property models radically changed under the GDR, the family model they promoted was a legacy of the one present after the end of the war. Division of domestic labour at home and family care remained unchanged, a burden carried by women. However, this model was based on the unchanged normative nuclear family. In her book ‘The Domestic Revenge’ (2006), Donna Harsch highlights the conflicts between the GDR State ruled by the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the women and the family. Whereas the SED needed women's production forces, they promoted high fertility and the nuclear family model. Consequently, this ideal was translated into architecture and, more precisely, the typical layout of the dwelling. With the standardisation of construction, dwelling layouts were likewise typified, and by the 1970s, the typology WBS 705 was ubiquitous in most of the new housing constructed by the GDR. The socialist ideology celebrated the idea of citizens living in the exact same unit as an achievement of equality and a common experience (Hanemann 2018). For the thousands of relocated people living previously in dilapidated housing without toilets and coal heating, like Ms H, the experience of brand new housing was significant in maintaining GDR legitimacy. In the WBS 70 typology used by the WBK Neubrandenburg, floor plans were determined by the maximum ceiling span and the necessary shafts for the bathroom and the kitchen; only seven different floorplans were predominantly implemented.

The spatial organisation of the WBS was structured by a middle entrance corridor connecting the sleeping rooms, the bathroom, the living room and the kitchen that would, in one variation, adjoin the living room. The bathroom was about 3,4 square meters. The children’s room, up to 9 to 11 square meters, would be planned for two children. The parent’s room was between 11 and 14 square meters. The living room of 20 square meters was the largest. Finally, the kitchen’s size varied from 4 to 10 square meters. The WBS 70 floor plan reinforced gendered uses due to a specific function assigned to each room and the still gendered pattern of housework. Furthermore, with a constant shortage of consumer goods or facilities, like car repair workshops or clothing stores, families had to compensate with duties at home after work. A study made in Jena-Lobeda in 1988 (Hannemann 2018) showed that men would occupy the living room, blocking it to other family

Fig. 11 - Regular floor plans, north of Torstrasse, 1985

members, and women would have to carry out their housework in the limited spaces of the kitchen and bathroom. Through the compilation of different social analyses in the 1980s, Christine Hannemann reports that women complained about the small size of the children’s room and the bathroom where they would wash the laundry (2005). Inflexibility in the uses of the spaces and the narrowness of the kitchen was another critical point, especially in the types with the living room adjoining the kitchen . For the most part, the floor plan’s layouts were similar to the standard of social housing in Germany from the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and 1930s as Hannemann argues (2005). Besides the provision of decent housing, the newly built apartments did not question gendered roles inside the home. They proved to exacerbate them. Since there was no incentive from the state regarding gender equality in the home, women’s assignment to housework and childcare remained unchanged and exacerbate through the WBS 70 typology.

Nonetheless, during my interview with Ms F and Ms H, they rated their dwelling in the Torstraße positively. Although their situation is different from when they moved in with their families, they still live in their original apartment without their children. Therefore, they did not mention in any way the exiguity of their dwelling. On the contrary, Ms H, who lives in the 4-room apartment, mentioned having enough space in her flat and using her now available rooms for different purposes, from drying laundry to practising sports or hosting family and guests. She said, ‘My flat is a dream’. Ms F regrets not having a balcony, yet she said the courtyard was green and offered a nice view from the window. When we talked about the laundry, she recalled that it was sometimes challenging to find a space to dry it with her children and husband in the home. However, now, there is a whole room for it.

Due to the spatial generosity of their dwellings, some of the previously mentioned critics do not apply anymore. Especially through the children’s room vacancy, their flats offer great flexibility. In her book ‘Discrimination by Design’ Leslie Kanes Weisman (Weisman 1994) calls for spatial flexibility in the home design that could free its inhabitants from inhibitions. Her critic formulates that singleuse spaces do not respond to changes that occur during a lifetime. In the case of the two interviewees, we see that their living conditions might have improved due to the downsizing of their household, but what would have happened if they had, for example, gained members? In those two cases, we see how a surplus of room triggers flexibility and unleashes previously impossible uses. Nevertheless, from a larger perspective, claiming it as a sustainable emancipatory model remains conflicting given the current shortage of affordable housing in Berlin. To conclude, the project built by the WBK Neubrandenburg under the GDR regime has to be considered an outcome of a socialist pro-active housing politics that prioritised production to achieve decent living standards for its citizens. The established legal gender equality gave a framework for women to emancipate themselves by working and acquiring economic independence. However, women’s emancipation was always under the terms that best support the productive socialist ideology, not women’s self-determination. Spatial planning provided the basic infrastructure that liberated women’s time for production work. This stance is visible in the complex reconstruction project of the former Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, which provided and provides besides all the necessary social facilities, excellent access to mobility means and a central location. Women had to find their place in the normative and conservative idea of the nuclear family, which took shape in the structure of a dwelling where pre-defined functions mainly inhibited their emancipation. Presently the project’s economic accessibility due to its ownership structure and the remaining qualities of its urban design form desirable living conditions.