After 10 years as an arts hub, Berlin's Tacheles is facing corporate redevelopment. The building, which houses open studions much like our own Pendleton, is now a historical marker thanks at least in part to the local artists squatters who occupied it in 1990. The neighborhood has gone through the natural progression from "underground-hip" to now full of tourists.
The NY Times story correctly notes the fight between the artists and the corporations is more than one about gentrification, but about identity. Historical preservation is about more than saving old buildings, but cultural identity. Tacheles reveals that corporations and even residents can, without batting an eye, evict their founding artists.
