Tacheles: Thoughts on Administrative Law and Cultural Sublimation
Just blocks from the Brandenburg Gate, a crumbling and defiant relic of a fractured 90s cultural revival loomed over as I waited for the imbiss man to serve me a sausage. Das Tacheles, reimagined as a haven for art and countercultural resistance, was for over two decades, a canvas, a gallery, and a commune, embodying the energy of a reunited Berlin struggling to define itself. But its legacy, like much of Berlin’s underground culture, fell prey to the ambitions of urban redevelopment, leaving behind questions that resonate far beyond its graffiti-covered walls.
Tacheles was a microcosm of Berlin’s post-Wall renaissance, where empty buildings became fertile ground for creativity. Artists transformed this gutted department store into a living organism—its steel skeleton and pockmarked facades covered in murals, sculptures, and the residue of impromptu performances. By 2012, however, the property was sold to a consortium of developers in an effort to chip away at Berlin’s mounting municipal debts. Its subsequent redevelopment into luxury apartments and commercial spaces in 2016 felt like a betrayal of Berlin’s promise as a sanctuary for artists displaced by the pressures of global capital.
This erasure of independent cultural spaces isn’t unique to Berlin. It echoes in New York City, where the destruction of 5Pointz—a warehouse in Long Island City covered in graffiti by world-renowned street artists—sparked outrage in 2014. Like Tacheles, 5Pointz became a site of cultural erasure when its owner painted over the murals and replaced the building with high-rise apartments. While 5Pointz artists later won a lawsuit under the Visual Artists Rights Act, their victory was symbolic; the art and the community it fostered were irrevocably lost.
What these cases reveal is the fragility of cultural spaces when they collide with the machinery of administrative law. In Berlin, zoning policies and property law provided no pathway for the preservation of Tacheles. Despite its international acclaim, the city failed to designate the building as a protected cultural landmark. Instead, it prioritized economic imperatives over its role as a living monument to post-Wall Berlin’s creative spirit. The decision, while legally sound under Germany’s administrative framework, highlighted the absence of protections for unconventional sites of cultural significance.
In New York, the legal framework offers different avenues for resistance, as seen in the 5Pointz case. Under VARA, artists can argue for the preservation of works deemed to hold “recognized stature.” Yet even this legislation offers little protection when property owners wield redevelopment rights. What both cities share is a pattern: administrative decisions rooted in economic redevelopment consistently sideline the public interest, particularly when the public is represented by artists, activists, and marginalized communities.
The question then becomes: what is the role of law when culture is at stake? Cities like Berlin and New York are celebrated for their creativity, yet their policies often hasten the disappearance of the very spaces that foster it. In both cases, the governments followed legal procedures to their letter. But law, particularly administrative law, does not exist in a vacuum. The decisions to dismantle Tacheles and 5Pointz were shaped by a neoliberal urban agenda that prioritizes private capital over collective cultural memory.
Artists and advocates have proposed alternative models, such as artist cooperatives, land trusts, and public-private partnerships, as ways to counterbalance these forces. In Berlin, activists argued for Tacheles to remain a cultural hub under community ownership, a proposal ultimately dismissed in favor of private redevelopment. In New York, the legal battle over 5Pointz has sparked discussions about expanding protections for ephemeral art and community spaces. These efforts, while fragmented, point to the possibility of a legal framework that treats culture not as a commodity but as a public good.
The story of Tacheles, like that of 5Pointz, is unfinished. The luxury developments that now stand in their place may shimmer with the promise of progress, but they cast long shadows over the cities they inhabit. As artists and communities continue to fight for space and recognition, the law remains both a tool and an obstacle. For those of us invested in preserving the ephemeral beauty of places like Tacheles, the challenge lies in reimagining the role of law—not as an arbiter of property rights alone, but as a protector of cultural ecosystems that enrich our cities and our lives.
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Author’s Note: A less thoughtful, original version of this essay was published in 2013.