This lecture is about guilt. And how much responsibility we all have in shaping the urban environment. The collective Guerilla Architects will discuss how to challenge the usual ways in which cities grow by shaking up traditional structures and authority. They explore the ambivalence of contemporary urban development and make it a communal experience. As urban practitioners, their work consists of transdisciplinary artistic actions in relation to the city, in social, spatial, educational dimensions and the invention of possible futures.

Their artistic and performative work in recent years has been concerned with the lack of affordable housing, rising rents and the misguided urban planning in Berlin, which, based on the image of ‘poor but sexy’, has culminated in the spatial manifestation of the sell-out of the city. Convinced that in order to understand how to change the situation, it is first necessary to look at one's own actions, their lecture provokes discussions around the question of the commercialization of our cities and asks: Who is responsible? In its statement the work ‘We are sorry!’ was already part of the collaborative project ‘1km² Berlin—the tragedy of the open city’ (2020) by Guerilla Architects and Alicia Agustín.

Guerilla Architects is an artist collective based in Berlin. They focus on political, legal, and spatial grey areas in their spatial interventions and socio-critical art projects. Being ‘guerilla’ is their approach to urban development. Contrary to the belief that one must build big to create significant value, the collective utilizes untapped potentials—free resources—from the abundance and overproduction of urban society. Our (Their?) goal is to effect a change in perspective, uncover grievances, and initiate changes: to provoke urban development for the better. Guerilla Architects work appropriative, cooperative, flexible, informal, immediate, context-related, performative, political, playful, and networked.

The lecture will be held in English.