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Berlin Journals—On the History and Present State of the City #10
Spielclub. Kinder Stadt Geld
Claudia Hummel, Valeria Fahrenkrog, Katharina von Hagenow
From 1969 to 1971, a working group at the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) developed a form of play critical of capitalism for and with working-class children. Over the course of several months, artists and young residents of the Kulmer neighborhood in Berlin-Schöneberg devised alternatives to the promises of the toy industry. In this so-called Spielklub (play club), a play city was created in which the mechanisms of capitalist economic activity could be experienced and thus made transparent.
Reactivated in the winter of 2019/20 at the nGbK, the Spielclub Oranienstraße 25 offered Berlin school classes the opportunity to play in a model of Kreuzberg's Oranienstraße. The focus remained on pressing issues of urban development, including rental policy and participation in social change. With money always playing a central role.
Some of the children's questions were: "So what's the hotel owner up to with the mayor?", "Who owns the wasteland?", "What's missing here, on our street?", "Can anyone actually win the game in the play club?".
This publication locates the historical play club within both the trajectory of ideas of self-governed children's republics and in the context of artistic-activist projects of the 1970s. Spielclub Oranienstraße 25's activities and events are described and reflected on by its organizers.
Produced on the occasion of Spielclub Oranienstraße 25, nGbK, 2019/20
156 pages, fully illustrated, with texts by Vivian Chan, Ximena Gutiérrez Toro, Katharina von Hagenow, Christina Harles, Claudia Hummel, Zsófia Puszt, Katja Reichard, and comics by Heather Purcell

Print: December 2023, German, ISBN 978-3-946674-09-2, 7,00 € .Order
E-Book: EECLECTIC, January 2024, German, ISBN 978-3-947295-59-3 (ePub), ISBN 978-3-947295-60-9 (PDF), 3,99 € .Order