The Berlin founders of the Eden cooperative housing estate reacted to the ecological and social challenges of industrialization with a counter model: living close to nature near the city, enabled through cooperative land ownership. The housing estate became a role model for the German garden city movement and a paradigm for an early alternative culture until National Socialism, the GDR, and the post-reunification period shaped by the shaped by the Treuhandanstalt (the agency tasked with privatizing East German enterprises).
The basic principles of the cooperative--life reform, land reform, economic reform--remain as relevant as ever. In the publication Re: Eden, leading experts, contemporary artists, participating residents, and young architects examine the 125-year-old housing cooperative and pose new questions: What role can the Eden model still play today as a cooperatively held property? How might local knowledge feed into dialogue about new movements such as urban gardening, eco villages, new cooperatives, residential models, or solidarity economic initiatives? How can participative art affect communities and spatially express their wishes and interests?