LED 2016 Group B Landscape Democracy Challenge 2

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Place name	Tempelhofer Feld
Location	Berlin
Country	Germany
Author(s)	Vera Hausmanns

Rationale: Why have you chosen this case for the landscape and democracy seminar?

I have chosen the challenge of the "Tempelhofer Feld" because I have examined this case very detailed for another seminar which had the topic of collective processes in the society here in Germany. This challenge can show you how top-down participation can fail and how the people start to fight for their own interests because they were ignored by the government.

In the 1990s planning for a new airport in Berlin has been started and within the planning to close the Tempelhof airport. But what should you do with such a big open space in Berlin. So the government planned to build some houses at the edge of airfield and in the middle of the ring of houses there should be a planned park. In 2008 the government closed the airport, because in 2017 there should be the international horticulture exhibition at this place and the Berlin-Brandenburg airport should be opened. For the planning of the international horticulture exhibition there has been a competition with participation after the winner has been chosen. The "Tempelhofer Feld" has been closed for two years. After these two years the government has opened this place for the citizens and for chosen urban pioneers. During this two years the top down participation of the competition has failed and the people start to protest against the plans of the government, because I they like the new open space very much. They didn't want to have buildings on the airfield and they didn't want to have an international horticulture exhibition there. They have started to collect signatures to realise a referendum. They needed three tries to realise it. Then the day of the referendum has come and the citizens of Berlin have decided that the "Tempelhofer Feld" should be an open space. The government has to sign a "Tempelhofer Feld Gesetz", a law that this place has to be open space.

Representation of your observations

• you are basically free to use one or a mix of different presentation techniques
• possibilities are: analytical drawings, graphical representations, collages, video clips, comic/graphic novel, written essay/visual essay
• please add any visual material to the gallery, videos can be placed below, you may add text as you like

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  new developments

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Reflection

What are the major challenges for changing the situation?

• I think here in Germany governmental planning projects need to much time. The government has made plans for the “Tempelhofer Feld” and has started to participate people and their ideas. The failure of the governmental plans has been that they opened the old airfield for the public, the people like it and after two years when it’s time to start the construction process for the international horticulture exhibition 2017 they wanted to close the area again. That’s why people started to protest. You can’t give an area to them, they love it and you can’t subduct it in such an easy way. And now they are going to make a mistake again. They gave the “Templerhofer Feld Gesetz” to the people to protect the area of building houses after the referendum. Now the government is going to change that law for building some parts of a refugee camp on it. How should a citizen believe such a government?

What could be a starting point for democractically-based change?

• According to the “Tempelhofer Feld Gesetz” it is forbidden to build something on the protected area. A solution for losing the last believe into the government might be to assemble tents on meadow area or other temporary buildings. Because we all know that the refugees have underwent a lot of bad things and we have the responsibility to let them live like “normal” people and not like nomads. I think any kind of temporary buildings might be a reasonable compromise between the promises of the government and current refugee situation here in Germany. So you have the possibility to remove the temporary buildings when the refugee camp will close and you can give the old appearance to the meadow area. Thereby it would be a temporary infringement of the “Tempelhofer Feld Gesetz”. In my opinion, this could be a solution with that all involved parties could be happy.

References

• http://www.thf-berlin.de/tempelhofer-feld/ (Only German)
• http://www.thf100.de/start.html (Only German)

• Please make sure that you give proper references of all external resources used.
• Do not use any images of which you do not hold the copyright.
• Please add internet links to other resources if necessary.

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