On the occasion of the release of 0199.2 ARCH+ The Property Issue, Oana Bogdan, Olaf Grawert, Florian Hertweck, Marija Marić, Anh-Linh Ngo, and Christopher Roth discussed the social and political perspectives for a different architectural practice at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. Oana Bogdan used the particularly blatant situation in the Romanian community Roșia Montană to show the methods of land grabbing used by international corporations in alliance with state authorities and, in discussion with Christopher Roth, developed a political perspective for architecture. Marija Marić explained the frequently quoted “third way” in former Yugoslavia and illustrated how public forms of ownership can function independently of private or state organisations. With “The Architecture of the Common Ground,” Florian Hertweck presented an architectural history of the question of land ownership and gave a first insight into his work for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 16th Venice Biennale of Architecture, which he co-curated with Andrea Rumpf. Based on Hans-Jochen Vogel’s proposals for a land law reform for Germany in the early 1970s, Olaf Grawert and Florian Hertweck asked for specific concepts for an update of the legal situation, which is particularly urgent in the course of increasing privatisation and land speculation.
