These days, the Jahnsportpark and the neighboring Mauerpark in Berlin have become a battleground over what constitutes a good life. On one side is the picture-perfect embodiment of capitalism, which uses inclusion propaganda to create new incentives for investors and parking spaces. On the other side is the possibility of climate adaptation, multi-species democracy, and a realistic social utopia. Manuel Bonik, an active neighborhood resident, assesses the situation.
*
“I am creative. I create suspicion.” Oswald Wiener
As a real estate developer, one has a unique perspective on real estate development in Berlin – in this case, the Jahnstadion and Jahnsportpark properties – with all the implications for adjacent areas such as the neighborhood and Mauerpark. As a taxpayer, however, I wonder what the current CDU-SPD Senate is doing with my money and whether it fits with the current climate.
Transparency Note: Maria Räihälä and I have been running the art project Morgenvogel Real Estate and the nonprofit association Aamulintu e.V., which focuses on nature conservation, culture, and landscape preservation, for about 20 years. These days, through our project Majava (Finnish for ‘beaver’), we’re primarily focused on the restoration of forests and wetlands in the Lake District of Central Finland, but our beginnings lie in the construction of birdhouses, of which we have hand-crafted around 1,000 and sold primarily in Berlin – thanks in part to funding from the Berlin Nature Conservation Foundation and the Berliner Sparkasse Foundation.
Several dozen of our Morgenvogel birdhouses hang in Mauerpark, in the Birkenwald, at Falkplatz, and at the Jahnstadion and Jahnsportpark. We were by no means amused when we heard that the latter two locations were to undergo extensive modernization. For example, about 200 trees are to be cut down – many of which hold our birdhouses, which were actually intended to be permanent fixtures. You can see how they’re hung in a photo on the homepage of the Jahnsportpark Citizens’ Initiative. There you’ll also find detailed information about the insidious nature of this modernization.
Cognitive dissonance
From my collection of euphemisms: ‘Inclusion Sports Park’ – none of the three words could be more beautiful. In the foreground of the picture, friendly bodybuilders are helping an equally friendly, one-legged, left-handed person with Down syndrome do a handstand; groups of cheerful elementary school students are singing happy songs as they master new physical skills; in the background, rabbits are hopping, and the lark is singing.
If only it weren’t for the F-word: Fußball-Stadion (soccer stadium). That’s the central project, and everything else is just window dressing! Conservative estimates – and ‘conservative’ here is also meant in a political sense – put the cost at 300 million euros; realistic estimates at at least half a billion; and typically, in BERlin, it always ends up being a little more.
Compare that, in cold, hard numbers, with the cuts in the cultural sector (around 130 million euros in the current budget, with further cuts on the horizon) and in science and research, where the various universities are expected to save amounts in the tens of millions each. To put it simply: cuts in Berlin’s current and future industries, while being generous toward the ‘shooters.’
Bottom line: more parking spaces
Since I wasn’t selected for the World Cup or European Championship squads yet again – and since I’m more into culture and nature anyway – all this sports hype really irks me. They’ve been shouting slogans about inclusive sports and grassroots sports, but in reality, the funds are going toward a facility for major soccer events. Underground parking spots with elevators may be inclusive, but first and foremost, they’re just parking spots.
Aside from the fact that the new building offers only minor improvements for inclusion (and at what total cost for the stadium!), when it came to cutting the skyrocketing construction costs, where were the cuts made? That’s right! – in inclusive sports. That sector is now getting a wooden building for about 1.5 million euros, and recreational sports a small building of a similar scale. If I were disabled or a recreational athlete, I’d feel like this Senate was taking the piss out of me – or, to put it in a dubiously friendly way: farting in my face!
Simulation of ‘citizen participation’
What cannot be formally disputed: There was ‘citizen participation’ regarding the Jahnstadion (and, for now, just a little bit regarding the Jahnsportpark annex). Since I don’t consider ‘citizen’ to be a dirty word, I participated. During the COVID-19 pandemic, understandably, it all took place online. Or did it? There I was, with about 35 years of computer and internet experience, and yet I still had to ask friends to explain to me how the fucking hell I was supposed to log in. It didn’t seem all that inclusive to me.
When, exactly? Oh right, in a tiny, fleeting time window of just a few hours, where you were supposed to rapidly click through x drafts and voice your opinion in typical Jahn-style speed (as if anyone cared the least bit about what we said); you weren’t allowed to download anything. The drafts all seemed more or less the same to me – there wasn’t enough time to look at them more closely.
‘No biological value’
So I focused mainly on how many trees were supposed to be cut down (sometimes many, sometimes even more) and what would happen to the previously fenced-off, protected green corridor between the stadium and the Max-Schmeling-Halle: This biotope was omitted from all the proposals, since a dubious expert report had declared it to be of no biological value. Meanwhile, a member of the Friends of Mauerpark Association – of which I am also a member – had photographed and documented numerous rare and endangered birds there, such as the marsh warbler (see photos accompanying this text).
But the birds rarely have a lobby when it comes to construction projects; neither, for that matter, do the bats – which were abundant in the Jahnstadion, impossible to miss for evening visitors to the dog park – since they’re of interest only to ‘green nutcases’ anyway.
In short, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when it came to ‘citizen participation.’ The Senate was required to go through the formalities, but clearly didn’t want to. Which brings us to the political arena – or, more precisely, to the culture war. Let me mention two points that I can’t prove, but which I consider obvious.
The culture war
First: I think that GDR architecture was – and generally still is – bleak and ugly. Nevertheless, there are – or were – also successful examples, and among them was the Jahnstadion with its red grandstand, floodlight towers, and colorful shell seats. It could have been carefully renovated, and it would have been significantly cheaper – not to mention more inclusive, since the new building offers few notable advantages in that regard, and at what cost! Oh, how much the new Senate had to cut back!
But the money was there to tear down the stadium at all costs, to leave scorched earth behind before being voted out – just as is currently the case with numerous transportation projects, such as the car-friendly and tree-hostile redesign of Torstraße. Why do people do something like this when it’s already clear that financing the new building won’t be sustainable? A fairly plausible answer: historical revisionism – the eradication of any architectural evidence that the GDR might have had (even small) positive aspects. It’s a variation on the demolition of the Palace of the Republic to make way for the reconstruction of the imperial Hohenzollern Palace. Take that (too), East Germans! Sooner or later, the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz will be next.
Too much freedom and anarchy?
Second: The new Jahnstadion may be built in one, two, or three decades, but long before that, conservative control freaks may increasingly take control of the anarchic Mauerpark. This top tourist attraction has something very Berlin-esque about it: Just like at Tempelhofer Feld or the Wall Strip in general, there’s simply nothing for tourists to see there except other tourists. At most, there are cheerful Berliners who love to wander around there again and again (in my case, for about 30 years now), with a dog or other companions, and enjoy, for example, remarkable bands (I’ll skip the long list of athletic, culinary, cultural, and other activities one can otherwise engage in at such a ‘non-place’).
There, in the best sense of the word and cum grano salis, freedom and anarchy reign supreme and elude capitalist exploitation logic (as the older generation used to call it). This is the opposite of the lifestyle envisioned by the black-and-blue coalition, where you either kick the wall in a prefab apartment or, as a ‘high achiever,’ watch the robotic lawn mower at work from your single-family home while otherwise spending your time worrying about the neighbors.
To tear down places like Mauerpark – that’s why Wegner was elected! Here, too, discipline, order, and petty-bourgeois tranquility are to reign! Just by tearing down the so-called Hinterlandmauer (a legal graffiti zone on a surviving section of the former Berlin Wall’s eastern rear wall), you’ll drive the dealers and their customers to another location, and first of all – inclusion! inclusion! – an entrance to the stadium from the Mauerpark side must be created, which provides numerous reasons to expand control over Mauerpark.
Climate issues
And then there’s the whole climate issue – even if it’s just the urban climate or, more specifically, the local climate. Since I spend my summers in Finland, I’m certainly allowed to scoff when people in this – from my perspective – southern metropolis of Berlin complain about the heat. But residents of Jahnpark and the surrounding area (of which I, too, am a part) don’t find it funny. According to the black-and-red control-freak logic, a social hot spot – in the best sense of the term – must be turned into one in the worst sense.
Must we support climate change by cutting down trees and installing artificial turf instead of the existing water-absorbing natural grass? After all, ‘green’ is just unsportsmanlike campaign propaganda for the slobs.
The sports field, for example, is to be converted into an artificial turf field – a project costing an inexplicably high sum of 3 million euros. But you do get your money’s worth: a fundamentally impermissible encroachment on a critical habitat structure (according to the Pankow Office for Environmental Protection and Nature Conservation, which was excluded from the planning process), along with all the negative consequences of soil sealing on the ground, the water cycle, infiltration, the microclimate, and human health. Fun fact: Of the 3 million euros allocated solely for this project, 45% comes from the ‘Infrastructure and Climate Neutrality’ special fund.
Propaganda for the slobs
More parking spaces! Goal! Administrative building! Goal!! Soil sealing that truly deserves the name! Goal!!! Why hasn’t the entire site been turned into a concrete parking lot long ago?! It doesn’t matter whether the Olympic bid works out! The main thing is: a monstrous soccer stadium and a Jahn sports parking lot!
Oh well, I’m getting carried away. It’s just not easy being a real estate developer.