Guerilla Architects is a multi-disciplinary artist collective based in Berlin. By focusing their work on spatial interventions and socio-critical art projects, they approach urban development by being „guerilla“. This means that great value is not necessarily only created by building on a grand scale. On the contrary, by working with existing structures, it often only requires minimally invasive interventions in order to give new meaning to former invisible spaces. Guerilla Architects draw on the untapped potential of political, legal und spatial grey zones as well as the free resources which are available due to the abundance and overproduction of urban society.

The collective works cooperatively, research-based and site-specific as a critical spatial praxis with a special regard placed on social and environmental sustainability. Believing in the performative potential of architecture that can moderate diverging interests in open processes of design forms their shared creative basis. Furthermore, the active involvement in the socio-spatial development of their own living and working environment is an important source of inspiration.

Guerilla Architects work appropriative, flexible, informal, now, context-specific, performative, political, playful, in networks. Their work can also be described as “spatial activism” or “performative urbanism”.

The collective was founded in 2012 in the course of a squatting experience in London during which they explored the grey zones of the local real estate market through performances in public space (Hidden Borough). By occupying and reopening an abandoned warehouse, they declared vacancies as public property and fostered a discussion on the awareness and future of London’s real estate bubble with the local neighbourhood.

In 2016 back in Berlin, an old caravan was converted into a mobile office in order to be able to always work on site and showcase the understanding of the city as an existing network of partly invisible resources that anyone can use (Bastian, der Stadt:Symbiont). By reinterpreting the laws of German parking regulations, they could easily create an autonomous, central and cost-efficient working space in Berlin which was and still is a city of uncontrolled commercial renting prices.

In their latest research project (1km² Berlin – Strategien der Spekulation), Guerilla Architects focused on contemporary strategies of real estate speculation in Berlin. The collective scrutinised in how far the real estate market is affected by mechanisms of finance behind the facades of the built environment. The project outcome was showcased at the Berlin Art Week 2019 (Sprache der Spekulation) and through a series of performances in public space (1km² – Die Tragödie der offenen Stadt) in collaboration with the director and performer Alicia Agustín and Radialsystem.

Team

Anja Fritz
Silvia Gioberti
Nike Kraft
Shahrzad Rahmani
Benedikt Stoll

Collaborators

Ashkan Afsharian, Alicia Agustín, Emil Angelov, Orsi Balog, Stefanie Barz, Peter Behrbohm,Dominik Berton, Benoit Bovis, Polly Bruchlos, Gabor Csongradi, Mike Daly, Ihab Dawoud, Phil Dera, Emeka Ene, Özcan Ertek, Alexis Facca, Basil Fayad,FRZNTE, Lina Gómez, Sami Haddaji, Friederike Hänsel, Edwar Hanna, Ramona Heiligensetzer, Wissam Khaled, Leon Klaßen, Helena Knorr, Stephanie Köck, Camille Lacadee, Felipe Lanuza, Simon Leebmann, Richard Le Messurier, Petra Marko, Luca Marinelli, Tabea Mathern, Lara-Sophie Milagro, Emilie Peinchaud, Stefanie Pesel, Joanne Pouzenc, Catalina Pollak, Haouika Awâtef Porro, Esther Rizo, Sarah Rosenau, Charlotte Rosengarth, Marian Rudhart, Christine Ruynat, Anastasia Sosunova, Natalia Stepanova, Julie Teuber, Jana Tost, Ingo Tomi, Stephanie Traut, Penny Travlou, Rico Wagner, Laurean Wagner, Pablo Wendel, Miriam Worek, Angeliki Zervou

Partner

&beyond, ARCH+, Architecture for Refugees, Artlake Festival, Berlinische Galerie, Caritas Wien, CISR, ConstructLab, CRCLR, Culture Goes Europe e.V., Culinary Misfits, DingsDums, dpr Barcelona, ehrliche Arbeit – freies Kulturbüro, entretempo kitchen gallery, Fläming Kitchen, Foodsharing, Future Architecture Platform, future.lab, Hans Sauer Stiftung, HAU – Hebbel am Ufer Theater, Haus der Architektur Graz, Institut für Widerstand im Postfordismus, ISSSResearch, KunstStoffe, Material Mafia, MikroMakroWelt, Migration Hub Network, On/Off, owned by others, Radialsystem, Restlos Glücklich, Slow Food Youth, Stiftung Stadtkultur, Studio Krimm, Sustainable Food Academy, Theater Vorpommern, The Real Junk Food Project Berlin, transeuropa – European Festival for Performance Arts, TU Berlin – Natural Building Lab, TU Bühnenbild Szenischer Raum, Universität der Künste Berlin, Urban Transcripts, Über den Tellerrand, Vernetzungstreffen Rathausblock, Vienna Design Week, Z Common Ground, Zero Waste e.V., ZK/U Berlin

Ehemalige Mitglieder

Sophie Fetten, Tobias Hattendorff, Henriette Lütcke, Denica Indzhova, Philine Schneider, Lucie Waschke, Eric Zapel