The rally under the motto ‘RAW for all – Cassiopeia & Co. must stay’ targeted the owner, Kurth Group, which holds the seven-hectare site. The action took place directly outside their office. Organizers warned that one of Berlin’s most important cultural locations is at stake.
The background is a long-simmering dispute between the private owner, the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, and the state senate. In mid-June, the Kurth Group declared negotiations on planning law development as failed. Club Cassiopeia is reportedly set to move out as early as next week, with other venues potentially following.
Benjamin Kiepurning, who works at Cassiopeia, told dpa: ‘Cassiopeia and the RAW-Gelände are like a home and a family – this simply cannot be closed.’ He called on the Kurth Group to return to the negotiating table. A petition he started is to be handed over to the senate on Friday.
The RAW-Gelände, a former Reichsbahn repair workshop, houses dozens of clubs, pubs, studios, and sports and cultural offerings. The central dispute is when and how many apartments should be built on parts of the site and how many of the old halls with clubs should be preserved. Negotiations on this have been ongoing for more than ten years.
Source: www.tagesspiegel.de
