“TeePee” is the name of the village bordered by construction fences in a prime waterfront location. It consists of a good 20 tents, 50 residents – and a chief. The man with the Viking stature and gray-white hair is around 50 and calls himself “Flieger”.
“My apartment was crushing me, so I got out of here,” explains Flieger as he tightens ropes on his Indian tent. A chain with the finger-length tooth of a wild boar dangles around his neck. Flieger attaches the rope with slow, deliberate movements. “I didn’t set up TeePee to protest against rising rents, my approach is social, not political,” says Flieger, pointing behind him to where numerous young people are hammering away at their improvised dwellings. “I welcome the world here!”
Some people refer to the TeePee residents as “Spree Indians” because many of their tents are reminiscent of Native American tepees. Perhaps also because, in the eyes of many residents of the neighborhood, they are resisting the increasing takeover of the last open spaces by investors whose residential towers reach right up to the edge of the tent village. Its paths are neatly swept and separated from the flowerbeds by stones. “Creative, not chaotic” is how life should be here, says a young Lithuanian as he carries wood past fliers to his hut.
This poverty-stricken jet set profits from what society has left over, from returnable bottles and soup kitchens, from old building materials that they put together to make chic huts. Founding father and chief Flieger feels visibly at ease when he sees the international youth scurrying around him. He is not bothered by the fact that they are living their social experiment on public land that they have occupied rather than paid for.
Before Flieger set up the first tent at TeePee, he had already set up the “Cuvry” a few kilometers away – also on the Spree. Berlin’s first favela, as it was called by the local press, has since emerged there – with all the social problems that such a settlement of corrugated iron huts entails. “The drunks set each other on fire, it got too much for me,” says Flieger, explaining his “move”. In TeePee, on the other hand, order prevails and the dropouts don’t live there without rules. “No alcohol in the kitchen” is one such rule, which is emblazoned on a notice on the kitchen door. “Well, not everyone sticks to it,” says a young man with dreadlocks. Nevertheless, everything works well, even without an elected head. Problems are discussed once a week in plenary sessions and solved together.
But the increasingly limited space in Berlin is making itself felt even in a place like TeePee. “We are not a caravan park. Everyone is welcome here!” explains Flieger proudly. But when asked, it becomes clear that this means visitors and not new residents. The improvised tent village is very popular – and therefore already full.
Find out more from September 1 in Baumeister 9/2014.
Photos: William Veder