Regenbogenfabrik

The Regenbogenfabrik, 1981

The Regenbogenfabrik, occupied 1981

Squatters at the Regebogenfabrik, 1981

Location of the Regenbogenfabrik

Description of the Regenbogenfabrik

For our fourth stop, we will be visiting the Regenbogenfabrik on Lausitzerstrasse, a former squat during Kreuzberg’s controversial 1980s squatter movement. In 1981, after years of being a vacant chemicals factory, what would become known as the ‘Rainbow Factory’ was occupied by a group of young friends from Kreuzberg and renovated to make it liveable again. Like many of the squats in the 1980s, the occupation of empty buildings, like the Regenbogenfabrik, was in part a direct form of protest against the Berlin government’s inhumane urban renewal policy. The Berlin government had taken a destructive approach when it came to urban renewal. Old apartment buildings were being torn down and new ones were being built in their place. This system impacted young families, the unemployed, non-conformists and students the hardest, especially as housing was scarce and tenants were being forced to move out. Critics of urban renewal condemned the destruction, and Kreuzberg saw the emergence of several alternative projects in response; one of which was squatting. At its peak in the spring of 1981, eighty buildings were occupied in Kreuzberg. Some squatters were tolerated, while others were evicted immediately by authorities. The Regenbogenfabrik persevered and became a space of alternative living. It was turned into a children, culture and neighbourhood centre; a place for life, work and leisure to coexist. Like many squats in the 1980s, it was run as a collectively governed community, united by the squatters politically charged agendas. The squatters who had occupied the Regenbogenfabrik were only some of Kreuzberg’s population who opposed the emergence of the government’s new urban renewal policy. Kreuzberg’s squatters showed explicit defiance against the gentrification of their neighbourhood. Those participating in the squatter movement of the 1980s were rejecting the unnecessary changes being made to Kreuzberg and the impact it was having on the migrant-working class population. It also resulted in the emergence of an alternative subculture that would come to embody Kreuzberg in the late 20th century.

Selected bibliography

2017. "30 Years of Regenbogenfabrik." Regenbogenfabrik. http://www.regenbogenfabrik.de/30jahre.html.

Cichanowicz, Lily. 2016. "Shifting Tides: The Rise And Fall Of Squatting Culture In Berlin." The Culture Trip. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany/articles/shifting-tides-the-rise-and-fall-of-squatting-culture-in-berlin/..

2017. "History." Regenbogenfabrik. http://www.regenbogenfabrik.de/history.html.

Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. 2017. "Squatting in Kreuzberg." The Berlin Wall: A Multimedia History. https://www.the-berlin-wall.com/videos/squatting-in-kreuzberg-673/.

Why is this site important?

In the late 1960s, Kreuzberg began to experience the process of gentrification, primarily introduced by the Berlin governments planned urban renewal policy. The first urban renewal programme in West Berlin was announced in 1963 with the intentions of rehabilitating over 400,000 tenements in the first fifteen years.[1] The old buildings would be completely demolished, as only 30 percent of the existing housing stock was believed to be worth keeping for modernization.[2] The government saw the programme as a radical break from the past and a way to transform Kreuzberg into a desirable neighbourhood, especially when considering its recent separation from East Berlin.

By the end of the 1960s, criticism against urban renewal grew because of the obvious signs of housing decay and social deprivation in the areas that had been renewed.[3] The government's plans to improve the urban environment were slow, with 35,000 apartments still waiting to be demolished by 1980.[4] The criticism that the government had been facing from much of Kreuzberg's population eventually grew into physical protests and direct action. 1979 saw the introduction of the neighbourhood's first politically driven squatters, moving into empty buildings to protest their disapproval of the governments urban renewal programme. By 1981, approximately 165 buildings in West Berlin were illegally occupied by squatters.^{^[5]} Of these 165, eighty were located in Kreuzberg, including the Regenbogenfabrik.^{^[6]} In 1981, Anette Schill and her friends occupied an old building that would become the Regenbogenfabrik. It was both a political protest and an opposition to mainstream culture, "Tenants were being forced out of their homes and perfectly good housing stock was being destroyed. But, it was also about us trying to find a new way of living and working."^{^[7]}

Kreuzberg experienced gentrification in the 1980s, both physically and socially. The government's attempts to make Kreuzberg more desirable by modernizing it, changed the physical layout of the neighbourhood and threatened the residents with economic and exclusionary displacement. As a result, the social composition of Kreuzberg's population began transforming drastically in late 1970s. The migrant working class was forced to abandon their homes and move elsewhere. Kreuzberg quickly became the epicentre of Berlin's radical and alternative subculture. Young people involved in political rebellion, now made up a majority of the neighbourhood's residents. Their involvement and explicit opposition to Berlin's urban renewal programme, by protesting through squatting, exemplified Kreuzberg after the 1980s. Kreuzberg, a former migrant-working class neighbourhood, was being transformed both by the Berlin government, and by the new residents devoted to living alternative lifestyles.

Endnotes

[1] Carmen Hass-Klau, "Berlin: 'Soft' Urban Renewal in Kreuzberg," Built Environment 12, no. 3 (1986), 167.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Alex Vasudevan, "Dramaturgies of Dissent: The Spatial Politics of Squatting in Berlin, 1968" Social & Cultural Geography 12, no. 3 (2011), 284.

[4] Carmen Hass-Klau, "Berlin: 'Soft' Urban Renewal in Kreuzberg," Built Environment 12, no. 3 (1986), 169.

[5] Andrej Holm and Armin Kuhn, "Squatting and Urban Renewal: The Interaction of Squatter Movements and Strategies of Urban Restructuring in Berlin," International Journal Of Urban And Regional Research no. 3 (2011), 646.

[6] Serhat Güney, et al., "The Existential Struggle of Second-Generation Turkish Immigrants in Kreuzberg," Space and Culture 20, no. 1 (2017), 47.

[7] Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, "Squatting in Kreuzberg," https://www.the-berlin-wall.com/videos/squatting-in-kreuzberg-673/.

Street view of the Regenbogenfabrik

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