Whose City?

Whose City? is a film about the transformation of Berlin from the somewhat run-down and neglected, but highly dynamic and flexible city of the 1990s to today’s ever-more chic and exclusive city.

It moves back in time to the almost forgotten, but defining architectural disputes of the 1990s. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rest of the Iron Curtain in 1989/1990, and the German unification in 1990, leading politicians and urban planners in Berlin became obsessed with questions of aesthetics and tradition in an attempt to normalize Berlin’s city scape. And according to the film, this helped pave the way for the ongoing neoliberal take-over of the city, since the fundamental question was no longer asked: Who are we building for?