Karstadt Einzüge – False Promises brought us here.

2025. Public Intervention. Operation Himmelblick and different people and initiatives from Wedding. Berlin, GER.

CONTEXT
Since the spectacular collapse of the SIGNA Group in 2023, its once-iconic properties stand empty across Europe. In Berlin, the deserted Karstadt buildings have become stark monuments of failed speculation. At the same time, the city lacks accessible, non-commercial spaces for culture and collective life. The solution is obvious; only political will is missing.

TEXT
Karstadt Einzüge staged protest as spectacle – an affirmative, playful act of civil disruption. For years, Operation Himmelblick works towards free and simple access to urban rooftops; now they turned toward the hollow shell of Karstadt at Leopoldplatz, gathering around 50 participants under the thematic week of “False Promises brought us here.”

Disguised as a professional moving crew, complete with boxes, white gloves and red lettering, the procession carried through the neighbourhood all that had been promised but never delivered: transparent processes, real participation, social value, affordable space. The empty boxes became vessels of both loss and possibility – reminders of abandoned commitments and seeds of collective re-imagining.

The symbolic “move-in” was the result of a prior neighbourhood assembly and part of a starting engagement with the Karstadt voids. Rather than merely criticize, the parade marked the vacancy as a public claim: a try to awaken a common interest in transforming this characteristic an important KArstadt building at Leopoldplatz. Commonly fighting to get a stakeholder in its futures beyond short-term interim use and commercial logic.

Starting at the CittiPoint rooftop and ending in a communal gathering above Karstadt, the action traced a simple proposition: where speculation retreats, imagination can enter – from rooftop to rooftop, from promise to a collective moment.

Collaboration: Realized and developed with all participants of the Workshop, which was prepared and run together with Chiara Garbellotto, Lu Herbst and TinTin.al participation, social value, affordable space. The empty boxes became vessels of both loss and possibility – reminders of abandoned commitments and seeds of collective re-imagining.

Photos: Johannes Rau, Operation Himmelblick

Press:

WEDDINGWEISER: Von Dach zu Dach im Wedding. 04/08/2025 GER.

BRUNNENMAGAZIN: Weddinger ziehen ins Karstadt ein – symbolisch. 01/08/2025 GER.

More Information: Operation Himmelblick