“Improvisation as a structure-utilising, situational transgression of the plan is not the glossing over of a failure, but the recognition of the mobility of the situational space.” Christopher Dell, in Performance of Space in Arch+183

In south-east Berlin, preparations are currently underway for the extension of the Berlin ring road – the A100 motorway. The planned section of motorway will extend the ring road from Grenzallee via Sonnenalle to Treptower Park. It runs through a heterogeneous urban area on both sides of the current district border of Treptow and Neukölln. This mixed-use neighbourhood is currently home to industry, commerce, housing, wasteland – off-culture just as naturally as a Leiser shoe outlet and the AUTOBAHN motorway – and the urban transformation that has now been triggered by the planning processes is exposing the skeleton of the city: Houses are abandoned, lose their value, arcades are demolished, the way is cleared, urban spaces become overgrown and lose their functions in the urban context, an undefined transformation space has emerged in which questions about the values and visions of the urban future are posed anew.

THE PARADE As part of the Nordwind Festival, raumlabor berlin is staging a parade along the construction site of the A100 motorway. In a mixture of reality and the absurd, the staged and the coincidental, we will move along the route through everyday urban life. We meet artists and car mechanics, a fish restaurant and a philosopher; the visitor becomes part of an active urban collage. The urban transformation process overrides our everyday order – the performance gains the upper hand – the city becomes a space of possibilities.

The parades with contributions by Christopher Dell, Pastor Leumund, Martin Kaltwasser, raumlaborberlin and many others took place in September 2014.

The film documentation of the parade was shown as part of the “Urban Species Festival” in October.

Eine Parade auf der Trasse der zukünftigen Autobahn 100 von Treptow zum Kreuz Neukölln.