Art goldmine?!

In Berlin-Kreuzberg, the Cologne-based company Pandion is building the ambitious commercial project “The Shelf”. Before construction began, creative people were allowed to make temporary use of the old premises of car rental company Robben&Wientjes. Who are the winners and losers of such projects?

The creatives have gone, but the questions remain. What will become of the area around Berlin’s Moritzplatz when the new building project “The Shelf” is completed? What will happen to the artists who have spent two months finding studios and exhibition space? Will they return to Moritzplatz? And what has remained of a Berlin corner that was long a rough Kreuzberg corner – with the Robben&Wientjes truck rental company and a petrol station instead of chic, expensive offices?

Robben&Wientjes closed at the beginning of 2018. A Kreuzberg institution. Almost everyone in Berlin knew the company, anyone who moved would pick up a “Robbe” there, the rental fee was okay, the procedure uncomplicated. Dietmar Robben and Ulrich Wientjes sold their car rental company to Buchbinder, but Buchbinder did not want to keep the Kreuzberg location. So the Cologne-based company Pandion AG stepped in. Since then, the building has been called “The Shelf”. In future, the offices will be stacked like shelves, with something for everyone, provided the necessary money is available, because Moritzplatz is a tight squeeze for those on a budget.

However, the car rental company’s premises, which had been built for the coffee roaster Jacobs in the 1960s, were still there: the reception area, the offices, the workshop. Instead of starting work on the new building straight away, the investor invited artists to perform in the empty rooms. This interim use was called “Off Location” and also involved the Ostkreuz Photography School and the Weißensee Art Academy. The latter exhibited the work of the 2018 graduating class. A total of 160 artists from 17 countries took part in the temporary use, and the number of visitors was also enormous. During the 56 days in which art was made and shown on the Robben&Wientjes site, almost 60,000 visitors came.

Berlin Pandion representative Matthias Groß was delighted: “We want to strengthen social commitment here in the neighborhood, do something for the neighbors and with the neighbors, revitalize Berlin’s cultural landscape and do something for our image,” he told an online platform about his company’s motivation to make spaces available for art. The area around Moritzplatz in particular is a special location: “In Kreuzberg, we have traditional tradespeople, production companies, the creative industries and culture.”

Read the full article in Ga+La 10/2019.