Summer-work-project 2015 – Rote Flora is building up

Let us make the summer-work-project possible together! In summer 2015 we want to transform the Rote Flora into a big summer-work-project with 50 journeymen and craftspeople – for this we need your help!

The Flora has been squatted for 25 years and has been used intensively in this time by many people. After the squatting a lot was built up to create a usable centre out of the ruin which remained after the nearly-complete-demolition for the ‚Phantom of the opera‘. Fire precautions, a heater, the skatebowl behind the house, the Archiv der Sozialen Bewegungen, and the new building of the roof after the fire in 1995 are just some examples of bigger construction activities. After several thousand events and meetings in the last 25 years it is the time to make the building of the Flora fit for the next decades.

In summer we will realize the following construction phases:

• the renewal of the annex at the terrace
• the remediation of the canopy/balcony
• a remediation of the roof fittings
• facade remediation

Are you still planning or are you already building up? Actually already since october 2013 there are reconstructions: a new central cafe- and pub-room, a new kitchen, new toilets, a shower, a new grouproom, just to mention some of the work, which are near completion. An additional entrance with staircase will allow the use of many rooms without the need of opening the whole house. At the same time it’s planned to be barrier-free, so that on the ground-floor people with disabilities can also get around without problems.

It is our aim that the Rote Flora stays squatted, irreconcilably and can still be a base of political intervention in 25 years. It shall also in 25 years be an important place for the left movement. For the future our wishes are for even more diverse possible uses and even more people, who help to form it and who feel comfortable in the Rote Flora. We not only want to obtain the substance of the already 125 year old building, but make the Rote Flora even more open, alive and beautiful through building alterations.

The financing of the building lot constitutes a big challenge. Even though all involved work unpaid, especially the building material plus the food for all craftspeople and helpers will cost lots of money.

25 years of the Rote Flora are not enough – let us make the summer-work-project possible together with your donations!

You can already participate at the building lot, every saturday/sunday from 1 pm.

Description Flora

In the late eighties the Rote Flora is arose out of the successful resistance against the planned musicalproject ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ in the Schanzenviertel. Since the 1st November 1989 the Flora has been squatted and considers itself as a left autonomous centre – self-governed and noncommercial.

Beside parties, concerts, theater plays and readings there are also regular political talks, discussion meetings, congresses and workshops. There are rooms for meetings of political groups, the Archiv der Sozialen Bewegungen, a vegan kitchen for all (is pausing because of the building lot), band rehearsal rooms, a screen printing workshop, an artist studio, a motorbike- and a bike-self-help-workshop, a building- and a sports-room. At the same time culture in the Flora is always integrated in political structures.

The Flora is explicitly a noncommercial place. No one is earning money with the Flora. There is no profit in the project: All income, which surpass the electricity, heating, water and waste collection charges are put into political projects. What is taking place in the Flora, is not dependent on how much money it brings, but on what content if offers.

What the Flora is, how it works and which course we take, is determined by all who use the project, together. And because there are always new people arriving and others going again, we are consistently in a negotiation processes.

For us the Rote Flora is a political project, which interferes in social debates and takes a clear stand. In the last 25 years the city has tried again and again without success to control, to pacify or to end the project – either by a friendly hug or by criminalisation or by repression.

One thing is certain: The Flora will continue to evade the dominant expolitation model as a practical alternative concept – noncommercial, self-governed and irreconcilable!