Vacancy and the Right to Housing

Bild: Habersaathstraße 40-48 Foto: Initiative “Leerstand Hab-ich-saath” 

Vacancy and the Right to Housing 
Vertiefungsseminar
FB06.085
4SWS / 6ECTS
C-2.1-40, C-2.1-52, D-2.1-40, C-1.0-40, C-2.0-40
Alexander Rakow, Iva Marčetić

(The course will primarily be held in English)

In Roman law, property was defined as the unrestricted right to dispose of an object or physical entity. The USUS was the owner's right to use the object in accordance with its purpose or nature, the FRUCTUS the right to reap the fruits, and ABUSUS was the right to dispose of the object or entity based on the authority to alter, sell or destroy it. Ownership was perpetual, absolute and exclusive. This ancient logic is still present in the spatial development of our cities, but one that is sometimes countered with resistance and application of opposite ideas. This is exemplified in the case of Habersaathstraße 40-42-44-46-48 in Berlin where we can trace how homelessness and repression are underlying components of structural vacancy, but also how organising and squatting can be legitimate housing strategies. The building that was once built as a public property, today stands as a symbol of absurdity of the market driven housing system. It houses previously unhoused people that are under perpetual threat of violence of eviction from the current owner and subsequent demolition even though, with minimal repairs, this building can serve a social purpose much more valuable than any new construction can. This example can also teach us how even the legal system as it exist today in Germany, can still protect the tenants through court rulings that favour right to housing versus right to maximum return, but how the violence of capital reproduction manifests in literal broken doors and bathrooms delivered by "unknown" thugs who protect the property rights of the owner. This building will be the starting point of our in depth investigation as it stands as an example of opposition between absoluteness of private property rights and possibility of a great social value. 

In this in-depth seminar, we will engage in joint readings, discussions and guest-contributions to critically examine private property and ownership-models, as well as how inherent power relations and various systems of oppression contribute to the maintenance of contemporary understandings of property orders. Through media and narrative research we will investigate how structural vacancy and the right to housing are exemplified in one building. Together we will examine the incorporated terminology, develop concepts and graphical expressions of strategies for breaking the patterns of property relations manifested in space.