Space for Urban Alternatives? Christiania is a squatted area in the district of Chris- tianshavn in Copenhagen, located less than one mile from the Royal Danish Palace and the Danish parlia- ment. It stretches over 49 hectares (32, excluding the water in the moats) and consists of old military bar- racks and parts of the city’s ramparts dating from the seventeenth century; as well as a number of build- ings constructed after 1971 (when the Freetown was proclaimed). The area offers city life as well as life in the countryside. Today approximately 900 people live in Christiania. According to the latest public census (2003), 60 per cent of these were male and 20 per cent were under 18 years old. Further, 60 per cent had el- ementary school as their highest level of education. While there is a group with a substantial registered in- come, two-thirds of the population either receive so- cial assistance or have no registered income. The Free- town is divided into 14 self-governing areas and all decisions affecting the whole of Christiania are taken by the Common Meeting, which is ruled by consen- sus democracy. Map: Hasløv & Kjærsgaard. Space for Urban Alternatives? Christiania 1971–2011 Editors: Håkan Thörn, Cathrin Wasshede and Tomas Nilson gidlunds förlag This book is also available for free download at Gothenburg University Publications Electronic Archive (GUPEA), www.gupea.ub.gu.se Cover: Leah robb © the authors, 2011 isbn 978-91-7844-830-2 Printed by BALTO print, Vilnius 2011 Contents Håkan Thörn, Cathrin Wasshede and Tomas Nilson introduction: From ‘social Experiment’ to ‘Urban alternative’ — 40 Years of research on the Freetown · 7 René Karpantschof Bargaining and Barricades — the Political struggle over the Freetown Christiania 1971–2011 · 38 Håkan Thörn Governing Freedom — Debating Christiania in the Danish Parlia- ment · 68 Signe Sophie Bøggild happy Ever after? The Welfare City in between the Freetown and the new town · 98 Maria Hellström Reimer The hansen Family and the Micro-Physics of the Everyday · 132 Helen Jarvis alternative Visions of home and Family Life in Christiania: Lessons for the Mainstream · 156 Cathrin Wasshede Bøssehuset — Queer Perspectives in Christiania · 181 Tomas Nilson ‘Weeds and Deeds’ — Images and Counter images of Christiania and Drugs · 205 Christa Simone Amouroux normalisation within Christiania · 235 Amy Starecheski Consensus and strategy: narratives of naysaying and Yeasaying in Christiania’s struggles over Legalisation · 263 Anders Lund Hansen Christiania and the right to the City · 288 notes · 309 references · 340 acknowledgements · 361 about the authors · 362 Introduction: From ‘social experiment’ to ‘urban alternative’ — 40 years of research on the Freetown Håkan Thörn, Cathrin Wasshede & Tomas Nilson introduction On 26 september 1971, a group from the alternative newspaper Hoved­ bladet were photographed as they staged a symbolic takeover of the abandoned Bådsmandsstræde Barracks, a military area in Christians- havn, a centrally located working class district in Copenhagen, Den- mark that had been squatted by young people. Over the following weeks, images and reports from the proclamation of the ‘Freetown Christiania’ were published by mainstream national media around the country. soon people were travelling to the Danish capital from all over Europe to be part of the foundation of the new community, located no more than a mile from the royal Danish Palace and the Danish parliament. in 1973, the social Democratic government of Denmark gave Chris- tiania the official (but temporary) status of a ‘social experiment’. a ‘Christiania act’ passed by a broad parliamentary majority in 1989 le- galised the squat and made it possible to grant Christiania the right to collective use of the area. This was however reversed under the Liber- al-Conservative government in 2004, when the parliament (again with a broad parliamentary majority) passed significant changes in the 1989 Christiania law. as Christiania refused to give up its collective use of 7 the property, and negotiations finally broke down in 2008, the Freetown took the Danish state to court to claim their right to the use of the prop- erty. The case was taken up by the Danish supreme Court in 2011, the year of the Freetown’s 40th anniversary. Christiania lost the case, but the Freetown’s legal status remains ambiguous and contested. in april 2011, the Freetown closed everything down and blocked the entrances, to protest and to gain time to consider an offer from the state to buy and rent the buildings of Christiania. after three days and three Common Meetings Christiania decided to take part in negotiations regarding the state’s offer, which also has a number of strings attached. around 900 people today live in Christiania. it is governed through a de-centralised democratic structure, whose autonomy is highly contin- gent on the Freetown’s external relations with the Danish government, the Copenhagen Municipality, the Copenhagen Police — and organised crime linked to the sale of hash in the Freetown. From its early days, Christiania has attracted significant attention from social scientists and architects. a significant proportion of Chris- tiania’s core political activists have been students or researchers, de- voting academic work to different aspects of the Freetown. Those who have been public spokespersons for Christiania from positions out- side of the Freetown have also constantly referred to research when ar- guing that the Freetown’s claim to the area was legitimate, and should be made legal. For example, during the first major Christiania debate in the Danish parliament (Folketinget) in 1974, those who defended the Freetown several times referred to academics. For example, social Democrat Kjeld Olesen quoted criminologist Berl Kutchinsky’s argu- ment that Christiania was a social experiment that was international- ly unique, as the Freetown was a place where a significant number of individuals who had previously been in the care of public institutions, because of criminal activities or drug addiction, had regained their self-esteem and lived a life integrated into the community. Olesen fur- ther referred to the grand old man of Danish architecture, steen Eiler 8 rasmussen, who at the time claimed that Christiania promised to de- liver everything that modernist urban planning had failed to achieve.1 rasmussen’s Omkring Christiania (Around Christiania), published in 1976, is a key document for understanding the extent to which Chris- tiania in the 1970s attracted attention from Danish academics and pub- lic intellectuals — and how they perceived ‘the issue of Christiania’. it in- cludes statements from scholars in the fields of criminology, economics, sociology, architecture, urban planning, psychology, psychiatry, theolo- gy, and medicine (see further below). in different ways, they all regard- ed Christiania as an opportunity to explore possible alternatives to the capitalist economy and/or the social institutions and urban planning of the Danish welfare state. as is evident in a government report from 1973, it was such a perception of what Christiania fundamentally was about that led the social Democratic government to give the Freetown the status of an official social experiment.2 Christiania never acknowledged this status but according to their pragmatic politics, they were willing to accept any outside definition that made it possible to continue what they were doing without too much interference. as there have always been numerous contesting definitions within Christiania regarding what the Freetown really is about, Christi- anites have also always been reluctant to accommodate serious attempts to define the Freetown in particular ways, whether by authorities or re- searchers. nevertheless, Christiania has always been open to, and even warmly welcomed, researchers.3 since 2004, the locally supported and driven CRIR (Christiania researcher in residence) programme has of- fered residency for artists and academic researchers who are interested in generating important knowledge about Christiania. The programme has sponsored more than forty projects on a variety of themes.4 Organised by a group of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, this book brings together 10 scholars who have done research on Chris- tiania in the 2000s in the context of various disciplines: sociology, an- thropology, history, geography, art, urban planning, landscape architec- 9 ture and political science; and who are based in Denmark, sweden, the Usa and Britain. although this is a book written by academic schol- ars, we have asked the contributors to write in a style that makes it as accessible as possible to non-academics with an interest in urban poli- tics and culture in general, and Christiania in particular. as a background to the chapters in this book, the following pages are devoted to an overview of previous research on Christiania, from the early 1970s and on. Over the years, a great number of books and articles on Christiania have been written by non-academics, including journalists, authors and Christianites, and many of these publications have been valuable resources for academic research.5 This overview will however be delimited to publications written by authors based in, or with links to, academia. two questions have guided the overview: What is the main focus of the research? What are the most important conclusions? We have divided our account into three parts, which rep- resent three periods in Christiania research, each of