Whose City?

Whose City? is a film about the transformation of Berlin from the somewhat run-down and neglected, but highly dynamic and flexible city of the 1990s to today’s ever-more chic and exclusive city. Many documentaries have in recent years been made on this issue, but where most of these follow the money and dissect the power relations of today’s urban planning, Whose City? moves back in time to the almost forgotten, but defining architectural disputes of the 1990s. With the fall of the Wall and the rest of the Eastern Bloc in 1989/1990, leading politicians and urban planners in Berlin became obsessed with aesthetic and national concerns, and this helped pave the way for the ongoing neoliberal take-over of the city, since the fundamental question was no longer asked: Who are we building for?

The film represents a meditative journey through Berlin, from the West to the East, and from the male-dominated conservative urban planning of the early 1990s to the more open-minded urban planning of today. Finally, the film constitutes a journey into the complexity and richness of urban planning. The arguments and viewpoints that have characterized the planning disputes since the early 1990s are listed one after the other, thereby gradually revealing the things that should be considered, if we are to have a city for all.

The film ends in a happy mode, but the question remains, if Berlin will overcome the old and new divisions and become a city for all.