Dessauer Straße and Other Stories of Emancipatory Housing Construction

The so-called Block 2 on Dessauer Strasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg (built 1986–93) represents housing that takes socio-culturally diverse models of life into account both conceptually and structurally; it also represents a striving for planning and construction processes in which women are equally involved - demands that groups such as the Feminist Organization of Women Planners and Architects (FOPA) have been advocating since 1981. Embedded in this increasingly progressive women's movement in architecture and urban politics, architects including Zaha Hadid, Myra Warhaftig and Christine Jachmann realized their ideas of emancipatory housing on Dessauer Strasse during the IBA Berlin in 1987.

For the exhibition, the two curators Océane Vé-Réveillac and Silja Glomb have compiled stories of past and present actors and residents. Drawings, models, writings and correspondence are interwoven with interviews and visual art in a narrative and spatial way.

Dessauer Straße not only traces the diversity of emancipatory architecture and living environments since the early 1980s, but also raises questions about the need and practice of affordable, pluralistic and socially just housing construction to this day.

Opening: 5.12.2024, 7 pm