The area around Ostbanhof in Berlin is a clear example of how in this city the typical categories of centre / periphery, downtown / suburbia are unable to describe the reality of the urban fabric. Vacant lots, huge plattenbauten settlements, retail chains, warehouses and abandoned industrial buildings: the typical landscape that we are used to associate with suburban districts are in fact few hundred meters from the very center of the city. Still their state is that of spaces of possibility, although the action of real estate developers is quickly taking over the place imposing an ordinary and banal vision for the future Berlin.
Video working notes for the Berlin episode “Periphery at the Center” Shot in 2012 in Friedrichshain – Ostbahnhof, Berlin, with a soundtrack composed by Miki Semascus