Case Study 2: Dessauer Straße 38-40

The second case study brings us to the other side of the Wall in the Kreuzberg district of former West Berlin to Dessauer Straße 38 – 40. The four-storey high residential building was designed by Mya Warhaftig and built in the Internationale Bauausstellung 1984/87 (IBA; International Building Exhibition) framework. The project was part of a larger urban design, designated Block 2 or women's block, which complemented the western part of a perimeter block that had been damaged during the Second World War and remained fallow. The architects Zaha Hadid from London, Christine Jachmann from Berlin, Peter Blake from the United States and the team Loegler + Partner from Poland designed the buildings next to Myra Warhaftig’s.

IBA 1984/87

The IBA 1984/87 project's idea emerged in West Berlin in the 1970s. It aligned with a culture of building exhibitions that started at the beginning of the 20th century. The characteristics of a building exhibition can be found in the real-scale implementation of urban and architectural concepts within a limited timeframe and mainly publicly funded. Before the IBA1894/87, Berlin had already seen the Interbau 1957 exhibition. This large-scale project was implemented in the Hansviertel and invited renowned architects to design modern housing buildings at on the northern edge of Tiergarten Park. Besides being a prime example of modernist architecture, the Interbau 1957 was an instrument to display western power in response to the prestigious residential project for workers on the Stalinallee built by the GDR in East Berlin (Schätzke 2016). In sum, what makes building exhibitions outstanding is their extreme concentration of resources to produce permanent architecture that has a significant impact on the city and its residents. The IBA 1984/87 direction was divided between Hardt-Waltherr Hämer and Joseph Paul Kleihues. While the IBA Atlbau1 (old building) ‘careful urban renewal’ focused on the renovation of existing buildings, the IBA Neubau (new construction) planned the erection of buildings in part of the city that remained empty after the removal of the Second World War debris.

The ideology behind the IBA Neubau took the motto’ critical reconstruction’. It is inscribed in post-modernist discourses that praised the merits of the historical city as opposed to the modernist separation of functions and isolated buildings. Aldo Rossi, who has a built contribution to the IBA on the Wilhelmstraße, advocated for a return to studying the city’s historical morphology. Influenced by his ideas as well 1 Ibid.: 2. as those of Jane Jacobs or Siedler and Niggemeyer, IBA Neubau’s director Joseph Paul Kleihues based his urban planning principles for the IBA on preserving the perimeter block. According to him, it constituted the typical ground figure of Berlin; therefore, in his opinion it had be preserved and reinforced.

The raze-and-build policies in the previous decades in West Berlin were largely criticized amongst the architectural scene, and before the IBA, a masterplan for the district of Kreuzberg foresaw a large-scale demolition and the eviction of 15.000 people (Akcan 2018). Against the backdrop of an ongoing housing shortage, it became evident to the citizens that empty buildings remained vacant until they crumbled and would be demolished to make way for expensive new housing. Kreuzberg was on the margins of West Berlin, not far from the Wall and home to working-class migrants, mainly from Turkey, as well as alternative youth who moved to West Berlin to avoid military service. These groups lived in the remaining run-down tenement houses. The lack of action from the politics to rehabilitate them triggered a significant movement of rehab squatting that aimed to protest against vacancy and inadequate housing. The resulting demands were finally translated into the planning principles of the IBA Altbau, which successfully preserved social structures from migrant communities, as Esra Akcan explained in her comprehensive book ‘Open Architecture’ (2018).

On the other hand, the IBA Neubau invited acclaimed international architects to build following the old urban fabric defined by the perimeter blocks from the 19th

Fig. 23 - IBA planning seminar on Block 2 with (from left) Myra Warhaftig, Zaha Hadid, Hans Kollhoff and Josef Paul Kleihues, n.d.

century. The reception of the building exhibition was not only positive. The lack of discussion about urban design and its nostalgic tendencies raised discontent amongst the architectural press. Even local architects voiced their frustration regarding the lack of competition transparency (Akcan 2018). Furthermore, due to exclusively male architects and specialists commissioned by the IBA, women planers started to raise their voices against their marginalization.

“Claim Space & Take a Seat”2 FOPA, a women planners’ insurgency

In December 1981, a group of 70 women architects, planners and academics took action and gatecrashed a hearing about urban renewal and social impacts planned for preparing the IBA where 300 men were sitting. Margit Kennedy, employed at the IBA research department, led the prepared action. Through seven inputs, the women group voiced their critics regarding hierarchical floor plans in social housing, the ignorance of women residents’ needs and the exclusive commission of male architects and experts. Consequently, they formulated the following demands: more women should represent women’s interest in the IBA committees, more women should participate in planning processes and be commissioned, sociocultural facilities, local supply and public spaces should be considered in urban planning, and lastly norms should include new forms of household (Riß 2016, 58).

While this insurgent action marked the starting point of the Feministische Organisation von Planerinnen und Architektinnen (FOPA; Feminist Organization of Female Planners and Architects), it is embedded in the second wave of German feminist discourses, which started to infiltrate planning discourses already in the 1970s. From 1968 on, feminist groups started to emerge in universities. From 1976 onwards, in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the qualification and professionalization of women started to rise due to a major reforms in marriage and family legislations. Previously, the gender repartition of the housewife at home taking care of the children was inscribed in the law. For example, women would need the permission of their husbands to work, to get a driving licence or to open a bank account (Droste and Huning 2017, 59). This significant social change had an impact on the family structures. By the 1990s, a third of the households were headed by women and even half in large cities (Riß 2016, 51).

Against the backdrops of those societal changes, in the late 1970s beginning of the 1980s, housing projects initated by autonomous feminist groups started to emerge. A Berlin example is worth mentioning since it is still existing today. The 2 Originally in German ‘Raum greifen & Platz nehmen‘, Titel of he first women planners‘ conference organised by the FOPA in 1991 (Keim 1992). Schokofabrik originated from an occupation and could benefit from the IBA Altbau program to rehabilitate its building. Today besides its seven flats, it includes sports facilities, a Turkish hammam, a workshop, a daycare centre, a community centre and a café.

As Sabine Riß noticed in her doctoral thesis (2016, 54–55), the gatecrash moment took place in the context of several previous publications about women in architecture and architecture for women in relevant architecture magazines. Moreover, the feminist group Frauen Stein Erde (Women Stone Earth), composed of female students, university teaching assistants, and young architects, published a manifest in 1980 which drafted the first feminist demands in planning that one year later were vocalized at the IBA hearing (Berndt 1980). The primary outcomes of the direct action were the foundation of the FOPA organization, the commissioning of a survey by members of the FOPA about women’s issues in architecture and urban planning in the Südliche Friedrichstadt where Myra Warhaftig’s building was implemented and the planning of a Frauenblock (women’s block) in the IBA framework.

The commissioned survey by the IBA titled ‘Frauenspezifische Belange in Architektur und Stadtplanung am Beispiel Südliche Friedrichstadt Berlin‘ (Womenspecific concerns in architecture and urban planning using the example of Südliche Friedrichstadt Berlin) was carried out by Kerstin Dörhöfer, Veronika Keckstein, Anne Rabenschlag and Ulla Terlinden. Through the analysis of a significant number of interviews with women living in the Südliche Friedrichstadt, they could establish well-grounded hands-on guidelines to design not only women-friendly floorplans but also parameters in spatial planning that could help to support women. Amongst them are the city of the short distances, sufficient social and childcare facilities, a mobility concept that prioritize the most vulnerable users like children and older people and the preservation and promotion of jobs in the living area. These guidelines established a framework for later realised competitions in Germany (Kerstin Dörhöfer et al. 1984).

Apart from aiming at the participation of women in male-dominated planning processes, the FOPA organization wanted to defend the spatial needs of women who were still performing domestic and family work and propagate knowledge about it. The organization board was held by Veronika Keckstein, Kerstin Dörhöfer and Ellen Nausester. They created the magazine ‘FREI.RÄUME’ (free spaces) to spread perspectives about feminist spatial planning. Additionally, some FOPA regional groups emerged among others in Dortmund, Hamburg, Kassel, Bremen and Rhein-Main. Today, the group ceased to exist but left a series of 11 publications published between 1983 and 2004 (Glomb 2017, 119).

Although FOPA’s demands provoked the inception of the women’s block, Myra Warhaftig distanced herself from the group. As Silja Glomb wrote in her dissertation on the Warhaftig’s struggle for the Dessauer Straße development, she did not want to be associated with them, fearing that it would impair her ability to put her theories into practice if the IBA decision-makers thought she was only concerned with feminist theory. (Glomb 2017, 108).

Block 2, the women’s block

Through a detailed review of the letters exchanged between Kleihues and Warhaftig, Silja Glomb concluded that the IBA Neubau Director dismissed her many requests for a plot that should materialize the promises made after the gatecrashing (2017, 26–70). This, even though Myra Warhaftig’s concept had a significant resonance in the specialized press (Krüger 2021, 109) and with the support of her doctoral thesis supervisor, Julius Posener. Apart from being an influential architectural historian and professor in West Berlin, he has been a significant support in Warhaftig’s IBA endeavour and vouched for her on several occasions (Glomb 2017, 22–108).

Not before five years later, in 1986, a first design meeting took place to lay down the design principles of Block 2. The focus was laid on ‘emanzipatorische Bauen und Wohnen’ (emancipatory building and dwelling). The future buildings should propose designs that would consider the spatial needs of inhabitants in terms of domestic work and childcare. The social housing units would be made available for families but also single parents. Due to a lack of budget and financial problems during the last year of the building exhibition, the architects were directly commissioned. By the time of the first planning meeting, a polish architect team had been added to the block by Kleihues. Shortly before the end of the building exhibition, his contact with the Polish building association mentioned that the IBA did not invite East European architects. They were few plots left, and it became clear that Block 2 was just a place to get rid of all the things that did not matter to him, as Günter Schlusche, one of the IBA Neubau project coordinators and Warhaftig’s friend, confirmed in an interview with Glomb (2017, 192).

Block 2 was divided into six lots. In the first place, the original urban design scheme was developed by Oswald Mathias Ungers, yet the six-storey high structure failed to win unanimous support. After concertation among architects, a perimeter block structure of three-storeys including three courtyards and a higher corner building were agreed on. Zaha Hadid received lot 1 with the most visible location at the Stresemannstraße. However, she focused on the volumetry and outside expression

Fig. 24 - Working model of Block 2 (planning status 1987) from the west, n.d.

Fig. 25 - Proposal of partitioning of the block 2 by the architects, 1986 A: Loegler + Partner B: Christne Jachmann C: Myra Warhaftig D: Zaha Hadid

of her building. Christine Jachmann developed lot 3 and she overtook the general coordination of the block. Her design includes a large typology of eight-room designed for a community of people with disabilities. The apartment is linked with two staircases in case it needs to be split. Some of the maisonette typologies have an adjoining garden, and the top floor typologies are organized around luminous atriums. Generally, Jachmann’s design cared for natural light and ventilation in every room. Moreover, she followed the idea of similar size bedrooms proposed for the concept of emancipatory living. Lot 4 and 5, designed by Loegler and Partner, did not follow the pre-established principles. They mainly focused on the representation of their plans and facades, and after the phase of preliminary design, Jachmann took over the development of their project (Jachmann 1992). Lot 6, with the smallest plot next to the existing St. Lukas Church, was commissioned to Peter Blake and Hannelore Kossel joined later for the landscape design of the courtyards. Finally, Warhaftig’s contribution to lot 2 demonstrated the most consistent approach to emancipatory living. After all, it was the built realization of her theories she had been fighting for (Glomb 2017). By 1989, the construction had not yet started, and the Fall of the Wall put the project on hold. The newly state-owned housing company Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Wohnungsbaues (DEGEWO; German Company for the Promotion of Housing Construction) overtook the project, and finally, the construction started in 1991. 1993, the first inhabitant moved in, amongst them Myra Warhaftig and her two daughters.

‘The hindrance of women’s emancipation through the home and the possibility of overcoming it’

Myra Warhaftig worked on her doctoral thesis between 1974 and 1978 under Julius Posener’s supervision titled Die Behinderung der Emanzipation der Frau durch die Wohnung und die Möglichkeit zur Überwindung (1982) (The hindrance of women’s emancipation through the home and the possibility of overcoming it). With this work, she makes a plea for a change in dwelling forms and proposes concrete alternatives to the standards floor plans used in social housing, which, according to her hypothesis, impedes women’s emancipation.

Her work was organized into four parts. The first part focuses on women’s status related to the family in the 19th and 20th centuries, based on the work of the sociologists Paul Henry Chombart de Lauwe and Norbert Schmidt-Relenberg. While she analyses mainly Berlin's dwelling typologies from the tenement building to more contemporary examples in the second part, she also investigates the uses of each room and demonstrates their unfavourable disposition regarding women and children’s needs. Finally, in the third and fourth parts, she presents her alternative design and its principles under the term Wohnungsbausystem (WBS; housing construction system)(Warhaftig 1982). When she published her thesis, without the detailed design of the WBS, the first 500 copies were quickly exhausted, and a second edition was printed three years later (Krüger 2021, 10),

Her three main critics concerning the typical three-room unit in social housing were first related to the hierarchy of the rooms, in so far as the smallest room was attributed to the children whereas the parent got the largest. Through an analysis of each room’s usage time and surface, she argued that children should have the largest space in the flat due to their need to move and their intensity of use. Second, she described a ‘living room taboo’, namely the largest space, which is supposed to be a place for different uses and all the family members. However, its representative character with many fragile objects on display limited its access to after-work hours for the parents. She analysed that many conflicts would when the mother tries to prevent the children from playing in the living room and therefore impede the children’s mobility and burdens her. Third, she mentioned the inefficiency of housework when the kitchen is designed as an independent space with one function, which isolates the houseworker and makes complicated to watch the children while preparing the food (Warhaftig 1982).

Through the historical analysis of the typologies, she asserted that the standards for social housing configuration stemmed from the bourgeois family model from the 19th century, which used to have domestics, receive visitors and separate day and night functions. This model, translated to the nuclear workers family or single parent, only facilitated oppression and inequality for the houseworker and had adverse effects on children. Her recommendations for an emancipatory dwelling relied on the “1. provision of an equal individual area for each individual member of the family without regard to gender and age. 2. grouping of community activities in the communal area” (Warhaftig 1982, 157). The project on the Dessauer Straße is the materialization of these principles.

Fig. 26 - Ground floor, Dessauer Straße 38-40, 2020

122

Myra Warhaftig – Architektin und Bauforscherin

Fig. 27 - Floor plan of typical appartment, Dessauer Straße 38-40, 2020

Wohnraumküche Dessauer Straße 38 - 40

D - 10963 Berlin

Myra Warhaftig’s design formulated a fierce critique of the kitchen’s organization in social housing norms. In her view, the spatial separation between the place where food is prepared and consumed led to a strengthening of gender roles. Since women were still the main houseworker and responsible for meal preparation, they remained isolated while cooking, invisible, excluded from communication with the meal takers and constrained to walk back and forth between the two rooms. Furthermore, she criticized the kitchen’s dimensions reduced to a minimum that do not allow for collective meal preparation (Warhaftig 1982, 132). Grundriss EG In implementing her design’s intention in the Dessauer Straße, the flats are distributed on both sides of a staircase. The entrance doors lead onto a central elongated space, the living-room-kitchen. It constitutes the heart of the dwelling and takes the function of an implied corridor serving individual rooms, bathroom, loggia and winter garden. Whereas the living-room-kitchen has the largest size, thus exceeding the living room, it is a communicative space where dining and cooking come together. Two small loggias adjoin it. Depending on the window’s orientation, the loggias have a window onto the bathroom to ventilate or separate the bedrooms. Another separated living room can be accessed from the central room and the loggia or winter garden. The living-room-kitchen is an articulation between the other dwelling spaces and an interactive platform. It also allows, for example, single parents to keep visual and acoustic contact with the children while preparing the meal. In a different setting, when guests visit, they can be welcomed and catered for without interruptions in the discussions. Her proposal of the Wohnraumküche (kitchen-living room) can be seen as a continuity with the contributions of women’s rights activists like Clara Zetkin and Lily Braun, who already wrote about the domestic economy and the role of the kitchen. Based on the socialist utopias of Fourier and Owen, the socialist Lily Braun developed in 1901 the concept of theEinküchenhaus(one-kitchen house) for women residents that aimed to rationalize and centralize housework. The building was designed with a large central kitchen and a dining room on the ground floor. Common baths were planned in the basement, and the housing units would only have a kitchenette (Haupt 2014). Berlin had three at the beginning of the 20th century, but they were not profitable and even within the first feminist wave, they failed to win unanimous support. Amongst others, Clara Zetkin criticized Braun’s proposal for its costs. She argued that the working class could not afford it. Therefore the clientele would be reduced to conservative middle-class households who would not give up on their conformist households (Becker 2009, 30).

M: 1/200

Fig. 28 -The five living-room-kitchen types A-E of the housing building at Dessauer Strasse 38-40, 1991

On the other hand, the famous Frankfurter Küche (Frankfurt kitchen) developed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was designed for a single household which relied on the rationalization principles of Taylorism. In her design, short distances and the economy of movements dominated (Terlinden 1999). As Ruth Becker points out (2009, 30), while the Frankfurt kitchen can be seen as the pioneer of the now widely spread in social housing Zeilenküche (row kitchen), second-wave feminists condemned it because it did not allow several persons to cook in the kitchen. Warhaftig’s ideas are, however, related to Braun and Schütte-Lihotzky insofar as it tries to rethink the configuration of the place where dining and cooking take place and search for ways to discharge women from domestic work.

A direct inspiration of Warhaftig’s reflections on theWohnraumküchecan be found amongst others in the influence of her teacher at the Technion, Alexander Klein and its flurlosen Wohnung (corridorless dwelling) concept (Warhaftig 1989; Lueder 2017). His approach relied on the idea that the dwelling should have a medical function and provide an unagitated environment to counteract the overstimulation of urban life. According to him, pathways in the flat should be optimized, and sequences of rooms with contrasted sizes should be avoided. Therefore, the use of corridors should be prevented. As Lueder analyzed (2017), whereas Warhaftig used Klein’s diagrammatic drawings method, she transferred the corridor function to the kitchen, creating an interactive space that fosters encounters and multiplies connections between the rooms.

In 2017, Silja Glomb met some inhabitants of Myra Warhaftig’s building on the Dessauer Straße. Through her interviews with a single mother and a young couple, it becomes clear that the living-room-kitchen fulfils its designer intentions. The young couple lives in Myra Wahrahtig’s former flat. The woman describes, “The kitchen is always the central point of our life together. This is where we cook and eat, exchange ideas and receive our visitors. I don’t want to live without this system anymore” 3 (Glomb 2017, 156). She first moved into the three-room flat with a friend as a flatshare. The couple never arranges the separate living room as such, like their neighbour across the staircase. She lives in the 60 square meters tworoom flat on the second floor with her 17 years old son. She found the flat when she was pregnant in 1993, when it had just been completed. She explains, “So yes, this living-room-kitchen is brilliant. It’s really the place where you cook and live, and if you like to cook as I do, you can integrate that into your everyday life and into the exchange. And sometimes Sydney comes here, doesn’t feel like sitting at

3 Translated by the author, originally in German „ Die Küche ist bei uns immer der Dreh- und Angelpunkt des gemeinsamen Lebens. Hier kochen und essen wir, tauschen uns aus und empfangen unseren Besuch. Dieses System will ich nicht mehr missen wollen.“ (Glomb 2017, 156) Fig. 29 - Model of a unit on Dessauer Straße 38-40, n.d.

his desk and does his homeworks here and I am there making the food.” 4 (Glomb 2017, 162). She adds that she does not miss a corridor. She placed a chair and a shoe rack to create an entrance situation. For her, her living-room-kitchen has only one disadvantage; it is dark since it only has one window. Indeed, seven dwellings from the built 24 only have one opening, which presents one relative weakness of the project. Her kitchen still has the original cabinets that Myra Warhaftig, her direct neighbour, planned. After Myra Wahrhaftig died, her children emptied the flat, and she got some of her dishes that she still uses. They remind her of her. She recalls that the architect had a strong personality.

In Ingo Kratisch’s film “Myra Warhaftig: Architektin, Historikerin und Freundin“ (Myra Warhaftig: architect, historian and friend), in 1990, Mya Warhaftig sits with her daughter and explain her floorplans for a two-room flat in the Dessauer Straße and explain that loggia and winter garden are an extension of the kitchen. She concludes her explanation by saying that through the separation of the living room and kitchen, an official two-room flat has, in fact, three-room (Kratisch 2018). This second aspect of Myra Wahrhatig’s design is another relevant achievement, especially for single parents.

4 Translated by the author, originally in German „Also ja, diese Wohnküche ist genial. Das ist wirklich der Ort, wo man kocht und lebt, und wenn man gerne kocht, so wie ich, kann man das in den Alltag und in den Austausch integrieren. Und manchmal kommt Sydney her, hat keine Lust an seinem Schreibtisch zu sit zen und macht seine Hausarbeiten hier und ich bin dabei und mache das Essen.“ (Glomb 2017, 162)

A room for everyone

As Ruth Becker reports (2009, 32), the feminist planning critics in the 1980s were concerned with the difficulties for single parents, mainly women, to find adequate housing. Due to an already existing social housing shortage and often low incomes, single parents were often dismissed on the social housing market due to its allocation policies. A household of two persons could only obtain a two-room flat. While most of the two-room typologies were designed for couples, single parents had only two options: either share the bedroom with their child or turn the living room into a bedroom. For both residents, child and parent, the lack of space of one’s own led to conflict. Myra Warhaftig’s neutral floor plans offered an alternative since the separate living room could be easily turned into a bedroom. Moreover, she designed bedrooms about equal in size to avoid a hierarchy between the rooms and give the dwelling more adaptability. This aspect is evident in the interviewed single mother residential story. Throughout the years, as her son grew up, the functions of the rooms were exchanged. As she talked with Silja Glomb, she recounts, “I’ve moved all the rooms around over the years. And I don’t have a living room because my kitchen is an eat-in kitchen. I mean, we sit here. When I want to watch TV, I go into the room (winter garden). So at first, the conservatory was the baby’s room and the large room was my living room and the current child’s room was my bedroom. Then I changed that. And the big room was the child’s room. Then the current child’s room was my bedroom. Then at some point a friend of mine lived here for one and a half years. Then the room with the balcony was his room, the conservatory was my room and the big room remained Sydney’s room. And lastly, my winter garden is now my TV room, relaxation room, for Sydney it’s a video game room, and that’s where I have my animals.” 5 (Glomb 2017, 163). All in all, the floor plans account for great flexibility, which, according to Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till's research about flexible housing, could belong to the category ‘capable of different social uses’ (Schneider and Till 2005). Both argue for a need for long-term housing planning to answer the dwellers’ uncertain future needs better.

5 Translated by the author, originally in German “Ich habe im Laufe der Jahre die ganzen Zimmer immer wieder umgenutzt. Und ich habe kein Wohnzimmer, da meine Küche eine Wohnküche ist. Ich meine wir sitzen hier. Wenn ich Fernse hen gucken will, gehe ich in das Zimmer (Wintergarten). Also zuerst war der Wintergarten das Babyzimmer und der große Raum war mein Wohnzimmer und das jetzige Kinderzimmer war mein Schlafzimmer. Dann habe ich das geändert. Und der große Raum war das Kinderzimmer. Dann war das jetzige Kinderzimmer mein Schlafzimmer. Dann irgendwann hat ein Freund von mir eineinhalb Jahre hier gewohnt. Dann war der Raum mit Balkon sein Zimmer, der Wintergarten mein Zimmer und der große Raum blieb Sydneys Zimmer. Und zuletzt ist jetzt mein Wintergarten mein Fernsehzimmer, Ent spannungszimmer, für Sydney ist es ein Videospielzimmer und da habe ich mei ne Tiere.” (Glomb 2017, 163) Fig. 30 - Southern facade of the courtyard in Dessauer Straße 38-40, n.d.

Urban environment and the fall of the Wall

The demands formulated by the FOPA organization concerning the urban environment suddenly became a reality as the Wall of Berlin felt. The previously peripheral district of Kreuzberg started to be intensively developed around Potsdamer Platz, and the concept of the city of short distances (Dörhöfer and Terlinden 1998, 177) materialized. Kerstin Dörhöfer, a former member of FOPA and friend of Myra Warhaftig, evoked during her interview with Silja Glomb, “Myra Warhaftig herself was surprised that she suddenly had a post office and a supermarket so close by because it was all on Potsdamer Platz. And before that, it was a wasteland in the corner. There was nothing, nothing, nothing.” 6 (Glomb 2017, 216). Additionally, the interviewees’ recent descriptions of their living environment confirm it. They also mention the proximity of public transport, parks and museums. However, they deplore that the area is not a Kiez (word for a neighbourhood with a feeling of spatial cohesion defined by its inhabitants) or does not possess a local Kneipe (pub) or Dorfqualität (village quality) (Glomb 2017, 159, 165). Although now surrounded by all the facilities and especially around Potsdamer Platz, shopping malls and extensive office development, Block 2 itself, with its single small shop still does give more of a innimate residential feeling rather than a vibrant urban life.

6 Translated by the author, originally in German “Myra Warhaftig war selbst überrascht, dass sie dann plötzlich so nah eine Post hatte und einen Supermarkt, weil sich das alles am Potsdamer Platz befand. Und vorher war das eine Einöde in der Ecke. Da war nichts, nichts, nichts.” (Glomb 2017, 216)

The genesis of the IBA 1984/87’s Block 2 tells a story of emancipation and struggles. It emerged from a feminist protest and still stands today in Kreuzberg as the built legacy of a search for emancipatory processes. Myra Warhaftig’s performances manifest themselves in the interchangeability of the rooms and the living-roomkitchen and it proves to be a relevant milestone in the built legacy of the feminist planning ideas of the 1970s and 1980s in Germany. On the one hand, Warhaftig’s ideas are anchored in modernist methods about designing the kitchen linked with efficiency and rationality; on the other hand, she criticizes it for its mono functionality as in one use for one person. Thus, departing from her own daily life experience as a single mother, she managed to subvert the modernist kitchen assigned to the housewife into a central communicative space where the social meaning of preparing food together is celebrated. It places reproduction work at the centre of the dwelling, makes it visible and open to collaboration with guests or household members. In that matter, it meets Leslie Kanes Weisman’s call for re-designing cooking places (1994, 167) where she even refers to professional kitchen planning, where kitchen supplies and tools are visible. Thus, applied to domestic kitchens, it could enhance users’ autonomy and lessen the houseworker’s burden. Furthermore, Myra Warhaftig’s proposition is radically feminist because it questions the gendered subtext in dwelling. Normative categories such as the parent’s bedroom or the housewife’s kitchen disappear, so the gendered spatial patterns can be altered to support other forms of living. Through its adaptability, the spatial configuration allows dwellers to exercise a higher control over their built environment and thus promotes empowerment. Finally, the state-ownership structure of the building should not be overlooked in its emancipatory character. Only because it does not comply with oppressive tendencies of the housing commodification system which creates unequal access to housing, it can be a place of liberation.

Fig. 31 - Living-room-kitchen of interviewed young couple and Myra Warhaftig's former flat, 2022

Fig. 32 - Facade of the Dessauer Straße 38-40, 2022 (left) Fig. 33 - Entrance from Dessauer Straße 39, 2022 (right)

Fig. 34 - Dessauer Starße, 2022

Fig. 35 - Dessauer Straße, 2022

Fig. 36 - Entrance from Dessauer Starße between buildings by (left) Zaha Hadid and (right) Myra Warhaftig, 2022 (left) Fig. 37 - Entrance to the nothern open courtyard, 2022 (right)

Fig. 38 - Northern open courtyard, a large tree enhances privacy, 2022

Fig. 39 - Semi-public passage to the second courtyard, 2022

Fig. 40 - Corner situation where kitchen and bedroom are oriented towards the balcony, 2022 (left) Fig. 41 - Second courtyard with playground, 2022 (right)