1. EATING IN THE UNDERGROUND
Voided Space in the Creative Economy
By
Rachel Wexler
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Department for consideration of an
HONORS DEGREE IN THE BACHELOR OF ARTS
IN
ENGLISH
College of Letters & Science
University of California, Berkeley
D.A. Miller, Thesis Professor
Karen Feldman, Thesis Advisor
May 2012

2. Table of Contents
Feast Menu and Invitation................................................................................................... i
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1
Background: Voids in the Creative Economy .................................................................... 5
Chapter I: Berlin’s Urban Context.................................................................................... 10
Chapter II: Feast................................................................................................................ 16
Chapter III: Aesthetic of Counterpreservation.................................................................. 20
Chapter IV: Social Indeterminacy..................................................................................... 30
Chapter V: Symbolic Implications.................................................................................... 40
Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 48
Bibliography...................................................................................................................... 51
Figures............................................................................................................................... 56

3.
ii
MENU
Friday Nights 8pm - Weserstr 58
SOUP: Sherried Parsnip, hazelnut pesto
SALAD: Green on Green salad with secret dressing
Little Dish #1 Crostini: Roasted Carrot-Tahini, Za'atar
Little Dish #2 Creamy Risotto, scamorza (smoked mozzarella), radicchio
Little Dish #3 Calvados Crusted Pork Filet, sage-apple mash
Little Dish #4 Mini Chipotle Burger, cheddar cheese, lemon aioli, slaw on side
SWEET: Bread Pudding, warm bourbon sauce
Reservations: feast@fortunastable.de
RESERVATIONS ARE APPRECIATED THOUGH NOT REQUIRED
All reserved parties are asked to arrive between 8pm and 9pm.
Walk-in customers are welcome to try their luck after 9pm.
-----------------------------------

4. iii
Dear Friends,
We are always adding more and more people to this group, so just a bit of explanation about how
Little Dish works.
Little Dish is a semi-private tasting event held every Friday night at Feast (when it hasn't been
rented out for a private party). It's a night to come have a look at the space and have a taste of
what seasonal things we're cooking up. Because we create a different menu every week, you'll
never have the same meal twice.
The dishes range in price between 4-9,50 euros. The sizes range as well, somewhere between a
big nibble and a mini main course. We offer everything a la carte so you aren't forced to take the
whole menu- so you can create your own meal in accordance to how hungry you are and how
much change you may have in your pocket.
We offer nice house wines but also have a few snazzy bottles if you want to kick your experience
up a notch. We have beer and some after dinner schnapps too.
We pride ourselves on good service in a cozy atmosphere. People often say that there is a special
feeling at Feast and we believe this comes from the fact that all who attend have some
connection through a friend. We like to call it the "Friends of Friends of Friends Effect". If
you're reading this right now, you're one of them. This being said, feel free to invite your friends
to join the group- the more the merrier.
Because these are "one off" events, it's always great to get a reservation so we can plan how
much food to prepare but we're also happy if you decide last minute to stop by to try your luck.
Love,
your friends at Fortuna's Feast1
1 The above two pages are a sample menu and a standard invitation lifted from a Feast
email sent by Suzy Fracassa.

5. Introduction
This is the email invitation to a “Little Dish” tasting event at Berlin’s Feast. I worked
there as a sous chef and assistant to the Detroit native Suzy Fracassa, owner and proprietress.
Written in English, the invitation itself exposes the customer base as composed of Berlin’s
expatriates or educated internationals. Also, self-evident in the email, this eating establishment
is not a traditional restaurant: Fracassa emphasizes the temporality of the occasional Friday night
“events”; Fracassa mentions the food but only as “seasonal” and ranging in cost, thus
underwriting the importance of the dishes and emphasizing the importance of source as well as
of social inclusivity; she also emphasizes the atmosphere of the event pointing to the physical
space as well as the “special feeling” that she attributes to the fact that “all who attend have some
connection through a friend”; finally she emphasizes the small-scale intimacy and even
exclusivity of the event by advising a reservation or challenging a “friend” to try their luck.
While food is served here, Fracassa shies away from inviting patrons, or “friends”, to a
traditional restaurant. The bulk of the email is devoted to explaining the “event” confirming the

6. Wexler 2
fact that it is indeed something that begs for an explanation. And, while the food is unusually
good especially for Germany and even for Berlin, the explanation does not involve the food so
much as it involves the process and environment surrounding it. The actual eating that takes
place in this eating establishment takes the sidelines; Fracassa implies that dining is merely a
formality: the dishes are small and cheap and do not necessarily need to constitute a meal. The
dishes are a guise, or perhaps an admission ticket, while the atmosphere, comprised of the
concrete built space and the rarified company, takes real precedent.
Fracassa exposes this precedence from a few different approaches. One of her first points
of explanation is that the tasting events are rare occurrences. Unlike a traditional restaurant,
dinner is served only once a week, if at all. Furthermore, no two events are alike because the
menu constantly changes. Thus, each event is temporally specific evoking a sense of a monadic
event. However, not only are these events temporally rarified, but they also take place in a
rarified environment.
While the event may always be in the same place (some supper clubs, like San
Francisco’s ForageSF constantly change locations in order to evade legal issues), Fracassa
emphasizes the importance of not just the physical place but also the activated space. The order
of things mentioned suggest a hierarchy of importance—“have a look at the space and have a
taste”. This descending order both subverts the act of dining and puts the space into a place of
primacy. Fracassa invites these “friends” to enter into a space that she suggests to be remarkable
in some fashion. This suggestion is furthered in that the space is not only the concrete
environment but it is also a heavily controlled, if not curated, social environment.
The social aspect of the invitation seems most prevalent and also the most rarified. The
salutation “Dear friends” hedges the anonymity of the “listserv” email. Furthermore, either the

7. Wexler 3
initiate or the veteran is automatically a member of a dynamic social network from the opening
sentence, “We are always adding more and more people to this group”. However, while the
group is never static, it is select. Fracassa attributes the “special feeling” to “the fact that all who
attend have some connection through a friend”. This Internet-age word of mouth allows for the
viral spread of invitations. Fracassa’s publicity campaign, carried out by her clientele, creates
the atmosphere that she advertises. While the food is good, Fracassa’s niche is very much
focused on the social aspect of Feast.
Eating the food seems secondary with the assertion that you can eat as little or as much as
you like; buying a dish is merely an excuse to be included in the “experience”. The reasonably
priced food and the small dishes act almost as a cover charge at a club would. The entrance fee
admits clients into an exclusive milieu; they are there to see and be seen, meet and greet; and the
DJ or the band or in this case the dish is an excuse to pass off the event as one of sensual
experience as opposed to an assertion of social status.
However, while Feast appears to be a place for a special social milieu, it is such as a
business enterprise. While friends and food lure clients, these things come at a price. While “the
more the merrier” may be the case, the more also bring the money. Furthermore, while one
could skate by with cheap dishes and cheap drinks, these things could also be “kicked up a
notch”. Forbidding a yuppified-air, the poor bohemians may enter for a reduced price—but
perhaps are made valuable for their aesthetic significance; the stuffy rich pardon their appearance
with stiffer drinks and buying a full meal. Such divisions aside, Fracassa concludes with “all
who attend have some connection through a friend […and] If you’re reading this now, you’re
one of them.” Because the email is the only way to catch wind of Feast anyone who receives the
invitation is already part of the milieu. Only the people that receive the email even know that

8. Wexler 4
Feast exists because Feast is not visible from the street. Those in the know are automatically in
the in; those on the outs do not know what they are missing.
This paper will investigate the phenomenon of Feast: the inherent contradictions within it
and the dominant structures that it enters into dialogue with. First I will provide an urban profile
of Berlin and a background of the space. Then I will analyze it in the three theoretical
dimensions of space: physical, social, and symbolic. I will explore the physical realm, the built
aesthetic of the space, through Feast’s use of the counterpreservational aesthetic. I will then
look at the social space created in Feast through its indeterminate business practices. Finally, I
will analyze how Feast, activated through the social interactions that take place within it, creates
a symbolic space, a space that speaks for and criticizes the social and economic environment in
Berlin. All of these perspectives of analysis will expose the spatial and symbolic voids present
in the city and will attempt to determine Feast’s efficacy in filling them.

9. Wexler 5
Background: Voids in the Creative Economy
Post-industrial cities like Oakland, Brooklyn, Detroit, Brussels, Amsterdam, Melbourne
and especially Berlin are turning toward a “creative economy” (Florida). In conversation with
Henri Lefebvre’s historical-materialist theory of urbanization, theorists today equivocate whether
the modern city has moved into the post-industrial or has taken a more quantum leap into the
realm of the creative city. No matter which label we attribute to modern day urbanization, this
economic turn is characterized by, among other things, changes in city populations: as the
creative class grows businesses are beginning to cater to the artistic and creative milieu. This
change in customer base provides a paradigm shift for the way in which businesses and thus
cities function and are defined. On top of that, the desperate freedom provided by the global
economic recession impels entrepreneurs to think outside of traditional business models and
perhaps fuels the flight from industrial and toward creative enterprises.
Berlin, as a case study, demonstrates many radical features that are involved in this
economic shift. Berlin has seen myriad political institutions in the past century. The city has

10. Wexler 6
been demolished and rebuilt. Berlin’s current economy is miserable in comparison to other
German cities. Regardless of that or perhaps because of it, in the past 20 years Berlin has
emerged as an artistic and cultural capital. Even more recently, Berlin has become a destination
city for the arts and tech industries. Due to the geographic fracturing meted by the Berlin Wall,
these industries have taken to reinhabiting Berlin’s plethora of unused space.
As scholar Alexa Färber quotes from the government-issued city planning publication
Projekt Zukunft Berlin, “[i]n contrast to established design metropolises, such as Paris, Milan or
London, the inspiring nature of Berlin is based on an atmosphere of transformation, progress and
constant change” (414). The combination of a particularly large artistic milieu, a liberal if not
supportive political and economic climate, and the availability of colonizable post-industrial
spaces provide for a unique economic and thus cultural and aesthetic environment. This
environment sets a precedent for development of social organizations that fit into these built
voids.
If the city’s history provides the concrete space for creative potential, then consequently
these spaces have attracted the creative people to fill them. The particular creativity that I will
investigate, however, may not resemble what “Berlin” and “creativity” conjure up in the reader.
Berlin is widely known for being both a destination city for the fine arts; and also a creative
technological hub granting it the moniker “Silicon-allee” (Hawley)— Berlin’s answer to San
Francisco’s tech monopoly. However, what I am talking about is a kind of creativity that stokes
both realms: art and business. While situating Berlin’s creative economy between the artistic
and the capitalist may be reductive of both, I will assert Berlin’s economic function is that of an
avant-garde experimentalism.

11. Wexler 7
Avant-garde theorist Renato Poggioli asserts that experimentalism, inherent in the avant-
garde […] enlarges the frontiers of the original form and invades other territories (133). If
plasticity of boundaries and challenging boarders are characteristics of the avant-garde, then
avant-garde can define Berlin in many ways. Specifically, Poggioli touches on a trope found
throughout the literature on creative industries and Berlin. Among these industries and the
cultural infrastructure that supports them, themes of frontier and limit or gaps and voids are
found in not only theoretical work but also scholarly articles. This theme transcends the confines
of the bounding binary fields of art and business, gentrified and not gentrified, dominant or
alternative, legal or illegal, temporary or permanent. Unified by their binarism alone these
disparate categories are again comparable in their shared dissolution and liminality in the new
economic regime. With the continuous innovation inherent in the “creative city” change is the
only constant.
According to scholars Jason Potts and Stuart Cunningham, “outside of market norms
[…it] is this situated liminal zone between the social and the market, not just in start-up
conditions, but when it is normal in established sectoral activity, that defines the space” (179).
Here, Potts and Cunningham establish the bounded areas of “social” and “market” as passé in
that their focus is not in this binary but in what lies between. The separate realms of social and
market, so clearly defined during the Fordist industrial era, have become blurred in what scholars
are calling not the Fordist city but the creative city. This “liminal zone” widens in the creative
city. In the words of Richard Florida, the father of the theory of the creative class and the
creative city apart from homes (first places) and workplaces (second places) “[t]hird places fill a
void by providing a ready venue for acquaintance and human interaction” (226). Such spaces are
social spaces were ideas circulate and creativity is nurtured. The “void” or the “liminal zone” is

12. Wexler 8
an area on which current urban theorists focus. Dissatisfied with Fordism’s empirical ordering,
the search now is for what lies in the interstices between or what pushes beyond what had been
established.
Feast, a social space, falls into the category of third places. However, not only does it
fall into a liminal socio-economic space, but it also interacts with other previously determined
boundaries and binaries. Feast falls between established norms but effects a “[t]ransformation of
the void into a plenitude, of the in-between into an established place” (De Certeau, 127).
Theorist Michel De Certeau, opens up the space in which Feast resides and allows for
investigation into the “plenitude”. In terms of Feast, due to its own liminal nature and the dearth
of scholarly material written on pop-up restaurants or supper clubs, I will borrow from theories
that address features found in Feast. These features situate it as an entity that reflects larger
societal tropes of liminality.
While bridges are De Certeau’s subject, I will appropriate this rhetoric to look at Feast as
also occupying the in-between and similarly how the institution transforms a void into a
plenitude. The arc that De Certeau builds can be transposed not only from the concrete bridge to
other constructions but can also be imposed onto ideological voids. Capitalist adoption of
artistic production is no new concept. “Art for art’s sake”, auratic or autonomous art, has been
challenged from its inception. Thus, I will not argue that Feast occupies one and appropriates
from the other, more I will explore the space between business and art that Feast appears to
occupy. Feast’s address furthers its indeterminate identity as it lies on the limit between the
gentrifying and the to-be-gentrified. This constantly shifting limit of address situates Feast in a
tenuous temporal-spatial zone. Feast exhibits traits found in both traditional capitalist
restaurants and in private collective enterprises. Its aesthetic channels both signs of urban

13. Wexler 9
preservation and renewal. In positioning Feast in dialogue with these binaries and in conflict
with their binarism, I will demonstrate how the institution deconstructs and problematizes such
concepts. Before a theoretical analysis of Feast, I will first provide some contextual information
on Berlin and the institution in question.

14. Wexler 10
Chapter I: Berlin’s Urban Context
I have chosen to write about Berlin not only because of the time that I have spent living
there experiencing the city first hand, but also because Berlin presents a particularly radical case
study for a phenomenon that occurs in many gentrifying post-industrial cities. Critic Andreas
Huyssen succinctly puts this radicalism: “[e]mpire, war, and revolution; democracy, fascism,
Stalinism, and the cold war were played out here,” (Huyssen, 60). This series of extremes sets a
historical precedent and provides a tenuous environment in Berlin’s current social climate.
Explicitly put, the precedent would be that Berlin would continue its existence through various
states of extremes: its future reflecting its past. And it seems to be doing just that. After the fall
of the Berlin wall in 1989 and especially during the past ten years, Berlin has enjoyed a cultural
renaissance with a particularly left-leaning population as demonstrated by the recent Green Party
elections and Germany’s economic prowess in the European Union. However, inherent in this
precedent of radicalism is an environment full of volatility. Given its history the world continues
to scrutinize Germany and as Berlin is Germany’s capital, the global lens’ focus lies there. This

15. Wexler 11
external pressure can be traced to the end of World War II. A brief recap of Berlin’s recent
history will situate the city in this spotlight.
Post-World War II left Berlin divided among the world’s superpowers each one enacting
a system of redevelopment. This international scrutiny trickled down further into Berlin’s
redevelopment after the Cold War. When the fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin
wall reunified the previously divided city, international initiatives expressed concern in the
redevelopment of the city in order to forbid the repetition of history. This redevelopment
initiative, combined with the return of the capital status of Berlin plunged the city into a flurry of
construction. However, the city albeit refreshed by new government and office buildings was
redeveloped in a far from homogeneous manner. Thus, the history of the city not only provides
for a particular political climate but it also furnishes the city geographically. We will focus on
one aspect of this effect: the gentrification and redevelopment of neglected or abandoned spaces.
The Berlin Wall had built a jagged gash through the city making cul-de-sacs from
thoroughfares and isolating previously accessible streets. However, when the wall fell these
previously invalid spaces became reintegrated into the city and thus became viable again for use.
However, attempting to reintegrate these wastelands into a unified city was far from easy and
many spaces remained or became abandoned. Many of the theorists that I will come to mention
argue that these abandoned spaces define the current identity of the city. While the post-fall
office space construction boom in Potsdamerplatz resulted in an entire district of nearly empty
office buildings, the unintentional spaces, the ones neglected, are the ones sought after by
Berlin’s “young and creative”(Louekari, 469).
Barbara Heebels writes of these spaces, “Berlin has provided a unique situation: a large
amount of open space in combination with vague planning situations,” (352). While the fall of

16. Wexler 12
the wall did remove a physical divide from the city’s geography, the government and the city
were in disarray at this time. The combined effect of superabundant space and insufficient
planning provided a particularly fertile, “breeding ground for such (sub) cultural initiatives as
alternative movements and experimental and non-commercial creative scenes,” (352). While
pre-Soviet and Weimar-era Berlin produced a large amount of creative output; “exemption from
compulsory military service for males living in Berlin [...] from 1968 onwards the city became a
magnet for ‘discontented youth’ from all over Germany” (Sheridan, 101). These “alternative”
youth were attracted to what Scholar Dougal Sheridan calls “indeterminate” spaces: the buildings
left in the path of the wall that provided for, “the absence of limits, often resulting in a sense of
liberty and freedom of opportunity,” (Sheridan, 97). This freedom of opportunity has allowed
for the growth of creative industries that the Senatesverwaltung of 2008 defines as “a profit-
oriented segment covering all enterprises, entrepreneurs and self-employed persons producing,
marketing, distributing and trading profit-oriented cultural and symbolic goods” (Lange, 534).
This sector makes “up 20 percent of Berlin’s gross domestic product”(534). Thus, the
indeterminacy of Berlin’s built spaces has allowed the necessary space for a creative new
economic sector to flourish. Lange coins the term “culturepreneurs” and asserts that these
people fill the “gaps in the urban landscape with new social, entrepreneurial and socio-spatial
practices,” (539). These gaps in the urban landscape are, however, transient for gentrification
swiftly follows in the footsteps of innovation and creativity.
While young creative people were attracted to the American-occupied Western sector of
Berlin, Kreuzberg, after the fall of the wall the, “decline of the West and the renaissance of the
East echoed and amplified […] the ‘fringe’ scene,”(Grésillon, 291) and alternative youth moved
into the previously Eastern neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg whose ex-Soviet residents had

17. Wexler 13
swiftly abandoned it after 1989. During this time of political disarray in a city so wracked by
war and division, a wealth of buildings was left uninhabited and virtually free for the taking.
Thus began the tradition of squatting.
As young people moved into these spaces they made the previously undesirable Soviet
Bloc buildings attractive and behind them slowly came more significant capitalist development.
However, as Daniela Sandler writes in her article about counterpreservation in Berlin, as “the
fresh coats of paint advanced steadily over the cityscape, most of the artists communities and
squatters moved elsewhere” (70). After a thorough gentrification of Prenzlauerberg took place,
the “fringe” returned to Kreuzberg and, after establishing a strong foothold there is now pushing
southeast into the neighborhood of Neukölln (see Figure 1).
Neukölln is a predominantly working-class and Turkish neighborhood. However, within
recent years it has seen a significant influx of young and creative people. Higher rents in
Kreuzberg push trends south into the indeterminate area between the two neighborhoods or what
is colloquially called “Kreuzkölln,” (Schönball). Signs of gentrification can be tracked by the
increasing number of bars, restaurants, boutiques, and galleries as well as by increasing rents
(Preisendörfer). Also, endemic to the creative city are the numerous creative spaces that do not
fall easily into the above categories. Berlin’s current overall development relies heavily on what
scholars call the “creative industry”. And this recent creativity-oriented development values
spaces much differently than older patterns of development. The influx of creativity into the city
provides a shift in customer-base and thus business values and their structures.
Scholar Barbara Heebels addresses this move toward creative industries and away from
production industries. She defines creative industries as ones that “produce products and services
with a high symbolic and aesthetic content [and their] outputs are valued for their aesthetic rather

18. Wexler 14
than solely utilitarian functions” (347). While Heebels’ article specifically addresses larger scale
more tech-based creative business popping up in Berlin such as design firms and entertainment
companies, smaller-scale service businesses like the bars, restaurants, boutiques, and galleries
listed above are also influenced by the creative trends in Berlin— they serve and attract those
who work at these larger industries and thus cater to the creative class.
Many factors contribute to the exemplary aesthetic in Neukölln that fosters this wealth of
creative businesses. As Heebels asserts, “the reason for creative entrepreneurs to locate and stay
in a particular neighborhood can also be related to the look and feel of the place itself. To users
and citizens, places represent memory, meaning identities and association” (350). Neukölln
presents a particularly rich environment. The neighborhood lies comfortably close to the more
gentrified and established neighborhood Kreuzberg where cafes, bars, clubs and galleries
abound. Crossing the canal to the south, one enters Neukölln where there is less of a sense of
established “cool” and more of an “undiscovered” air. Scholar Meri Louekari writes that
Berlin’s “free and artistic atmosphere; a certain air of anarchy, which can be sensed in both the
visible and invisible layers o the city” (469) attract “young and creative” people to the city. And
Neukölln appears to illustrate this effect not only through its working-class demographic, or
through its isolation effected by the Wall, but also through the concrete aesthetic of the
neighborhood: its buildings and streets and the establishments therein. The aesthetic of place has
become an selling point for Berlin’s economic development.
While Germany currently enjoys a strong economy, Berlin is known for being Germany’s
government hub and cultural center. What with such heavily institutionalized sectors, Berlin is
also a mecca for more underground initiatives like grassroots movements, political activism,
alternative lifestyles, and DIY movements. The dominant sectors of the city have come to

19. Wexler 15
acknowledge the value of these underground movements and have discussed the importance of
them to the vitality and economy of the city. “The city of Berlin is starting to realize that
abandoned spaces and the creative industries using them become the generator for
differentiation”(my italics Louekari, 480) and this differentiation is exactly that which sets this
city apart from other cities for due “to globalization […] it has become more important [to the
city at large] to find and support local characteristics, which make the city different from all
others, and to help it to stand out” (Louekari, 469).
Thus, while Berlin lacks a manufacturing industry, its government has begun to attribute
value to its creative industry and has begun to forge a supportive relationship with such
development. However, this relationship proves testy for institutions such as artists’ squats or
underground service businesses like bars and restaurants. Inherent in the identity and the allure
of these institutions is their illegality and so, while the government wishes to sponsor their
further development, the institutions require that the government turn a blind eye. It is this
paradoxical environment that sets the scene for Feast.

20. Wexler 16
Chapter II: Feast
Many liken Berlin today to Paris in the 1920s, the booming art scene and the bar and
cafe culture that comes along with it, as well as plenty of European, American and Australian
expatriates. I joined their ranks for 6 months during the spring of 2011 and for this time joined
the city’s creative and unemployed youth. This situation led me to Feast.
Oddly enough I ran across Berlin’s clandestine Feast before I even set foot on German
soil. As a testament to the internet age, while perusing blogs about Berlin’s counterculture—
specifically Berlin’s underground eating establishments where I could find employment and an
“in” to the city— I ran across Suzy Fracassa’s blog which chronicles her restaurant. After some
correspondence with Fracassa, I became her sous chef and business confidante. While I have
already introduced the “tasting events” that take place at Feast, much more about the place begs
explanation. Feast, at 58 Weserstraße in Berlin’s Neukölln neighborhood, opens its doors to
diners for dinner on Friday night and brunch on Sunday morning— on good weeks. If Fracassa
is busy or prepping for a catering gig or just tired, the doors remain shut. We served forty people

21. Wexler 17
one Friday and sometimes we would serve twelve. It is a small and volatile operation for a
number of reasons.
Feast is located on the outermost limits of the Reuterplatz division within the
neighborhood of Neukölln— Berlin’s newly gentrifying neighborhood (see Figure 2). The
Department of Urban Development, or the Senastverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, has observed
that Reuterplatz has a “very high rate of unemployment [that] can be attributed to its large
migrant and youth population. Since 2003 the population has grown steadily. This is mainly due
to the influx of young people aged 18 to 35 years” (own translation,
Quartiersmanagementgebiet). The profile continues with a description of the commercial
activity there, “In recent years more and more work in the Creative Industries takes place here”.
Among the tech start-ups and also to sustain the workers therein, boutiques, restaurants, bars, and
cafes have sprung up around the east-west Weserstraße drag. The cluster starts at Kottbusser
Damm and thins out going eastward. 58 Weserstraße fell, during the spring of 2011, at the very
end of this line of gentrification— it is about one long city block away from the nearest bar and
beyond it primarily lie residences1
. However, Feast’s out-of-the-way location is not the only
reason for Feast’s dearth of patrons.
Not only does Fracassa only open Feast’s doors at most twice a week, and not only does
Feast exist at the very edge of a gentrifying neighborhood, but also the word “Feast” does not
appear anywhere on the storefront. Metal blinds are pulled over the storefront during its off
hours. To a passer-by, Feast does not exist. No sign. Hidden storefront. Reservation only.
1
Admittedly, the progression of gentrification has undoubtedly pushed past this point by now,
however, this case study too can hopefully be generalized and translated down the line of
progressing gentrification.

22. Wexler 18
However, this seems to be, if not the whole point, then at least a significant part of what
defines Feast and what draws people to it. Feast operates under the auspices of the
“underground”-ness of the space and the inherent lure of its secrecy. What is more is that when
the metal grate rolls up what it discloses is not what one would traditionally call a restaurant.
Not only are there no normal operating hours and no sign, but also Feast lacks the trappings of a
traditional restaurant space such as an industrial kitchen and other regulation-grade outfittings.
Really, the space was never meant to be a restaurant at all. Instead, a space meant to be anything
but, has been reappropriated to fit the needs of an underground eating establishment. Exhibiting
this makeshift identity in turn becomes a marketing feature for Feast.
The space itself still reflects this spatial reappropriation. Little has been done to conceal
the building’s past, it’s new identity as an eating establishment only sheds a transparent guise on
the space while its worn walls still evoke its past. This aesthetic, evocative of an establishment’s
temporary existence, is at the very crux of the identity of the place. Feast has not merely moved
into a space, but the space, and its history, have become part of Feast. Fracassa left the
crumbling molding. Years have rubbed the plastered walls thin revealing molting layers of old
paint (Figure 3). The floor, another historical relic: a patterned tile inlay framed by cement;
boasts its scuffs and marks (Figure 4). Temporality, in short, underlines all of the features and
thus is fundamental in the aesthetic of the space. For such a trendy establishment, the space
itself is paradoxically firmly rooted in the past. The aura of the space is that of sustained decay.
Paradoxically, warmth and vitality overwrite this effect when friends and diners fill the
space. Because Fracassa’s clientele read about Feast on her blog or on other Berlin culture
blogs, or they hear about the restaurant from friends of Fracassa, frequently friends run into each
other there and shared tables aid in this sense of community. Along with these a priori

23. Wexler 19
connections among Feast’s patrons, the restaurant’s secrecy, location and sense of space
contribute to such a feeling of community.
Unless they are themselves friends of Fracassa, the diners happen upon this restaurant
through online sleuthing or by passing the storefront on an auspiciously operating night. It is off
the beaten path and the patrons have ventured a few long blocks past the last bar or café: farther
than they are accustomed to traveling for a hip night out. They have transcended the borders of
gentrified Weserstraße. Furthermore, once they reach these nether reaches, the space itself—
with its reappropriating of older spaces— evokes a nearly post-apocalyptic feel. Effectively,
Feast’s patrons have not only survived Berlin’s rough history, but also the anonymity of the late-
capitalist city as well as the “mainstream” course of gentrification in Neukölln. They seem to
have moved beyond the ills of the modern world and are bound into a community by the bare
and industrial aesthetic of the space.
In conversation with scholar Daniela Sandler and her papers on the aesthetic of
counterpreservation, I will now move on to the first analytical chapter of this paper where I will
look to the concrete aesthetic of Feast. Sandler evokes Tim Edensor’s analysis of memory in
space: “memory is increasingly detached from place through the mediating influences of
expertise, commerce, and media, themselves increasingly disembedded from place” (831). To
Edensor, the modern world evokes a yearning for memory retrieval in the face of mechanization
and modern alienation. In a reaction to this symptom of the contemporary industrial climate,
Feast inverts this effect by reattaching memory and subjectivity to enterprise through the
evocation of collective cultural memory. Edensor and Sandler argue that we find comfort in ruin
and vitality in the visual and tactile signs of industrial decay.

24. Wexler 20
Chapter III: Aesthetic of Counterpreservation
I will begin by reading the aesthetic of Feast as in dialogue with “counterpreservation,” a
term that Daniela Sandler coins in her essay “Counterpreservation: Between Grimy Buildings
and Renovation Rage” and expounds further upon in, “Counterpreservation: Decrepitude and
Memory in Post-Unification Berlin.” Sandler situates this term between two treatments of
historical buildings: preservation of dilapidated or war-torn spaces and restoration, or Sanierung,
German for “urban or architectural renewal [implying] a process of cleaning and sanitization”
(2009, p 69). Between these modes of treatment, Sandler situates an alternative:
counterpreservation. She then elucidates this alternative through examples of “art projects,
cultural centers, and living communities” which have “appropriated states of decay in alternative
and creative ways” (72). By reading Feast through the lens that Sandler’s article provides, I will
argue that Feast enters into a contentious dialogue with Sandler’s counterpreservationist
aesthetic. Sandler attributes counterpreservation to politically-charged anti-gentrification spaces
and Feast’s use of this aesthetic calls this signification into question.

25. Wexler 21
Much of Sandler’s first article lays out characteristics of counterpreservation. She begins
by defining counterpreservation as “a conscious, willful incorporation of decay, of unfinished or
incomplete elements, of dilapidation and fragments into the redesign and occupation of historical
buildings,” (72). This definition seems to correlate with Feast’s aesthetic. However, Sandler
chooses explicitly non-commercial examples in both of her articles. As I mention above, the
spaces that she examines are oriented toward community building not toward business operation.
Sandler continues by arguing that counterpreservation is not only an aesthetic but also a political
statement. In order to challenge this point, let’s look at a very concrete element of Feast, its
walls, and how it reflects Sandler’s definition of counterpreservation.
Feast’s walls “willfully incorporate” decay, as an art-historical reading will show. An
off-white matte plaster-like material covers the walls. Fracassa “did not do anything to the […]
room after the dry wall was reapplied because it had some very strange toxic tar on it from after
the war,” (Fracassa 24 Jan. 2012). This off-the-cuff remark proves not only the concrete
proximity of Berlin’s history, but also the everyday nature in which Berliners treat their
collective war-torn past. However, to remain in dialogue with counterpreservation I will gloss
over this historical treatment and focus on the aesthetic that this history left behind. The wall
covering appears almost dusty and accordingly in places reveals old layers of darker paint—
perhaps this is the tar that Fracassa alludes to. The interior walls of Feast are, to quote Sandler’s
description of a similar aesthetic, “surfaces softened by gradual weathering,” (72). Plaster, a
naturally soft material, softens further under the sands of time to reveal shades of history beneath
it.
Thus, according to Sandler, the walls of Feast illustrate the way that counterpreserved
spaces “take full advantage of the visual and spatial affect of decay” (72). However, what

26. Wexler 22
exactly is this “advantage” that Sandler mentions? An “advantage” implies that something is
gaining through incorporating or retaining decay. Here we have a paradox: decay is a physical
loss through time and advantage is an ideological gain. Thus, this aesthetic expresses an
inversion of value: what comes with the building losing its structural integrity or the façade
crumbling or the paint fading, is not a complete loss but actually an accrual of, according to
Edensor, memory or social signification.
Sandler, in the following paragraph states that “conveying an anti-gentrification
message” signifies “a defense of more diverse and inclusive social and urban uses” (72). Given,
Sandler’s examples of this counterpreservation aesthetic are non-commercial “art projects,
cultural centers and living communities” (72)— these spaces do probably espouse this “anti-
gentrification message.” However, such a stark sign-signifier correlation between the aesthetic of
counterpreservation and the socio-economic message of anti-gentrification excludes spaces such
as Feast. While Sandler adheres anti-gentrification to the sign of counterpreservation, Feast
destabilizes this correlation.
If the aesthetic of counterpreservation illustrates what Sandler calls the “intentional
framing and display of decrepitude [which] serves a socio-economic purpose by conveying an
anti-gentrification message,” (72) then she is also saying that Feast, in adhering to this aesthetic,
also actively promotes anti-gentrification. However, Feast stands on the periphery of
gentrification rather than in stark opposition to it. Feast’s geographic location explicitly
illustrates this fact in that it lies merely two blocks east of the Reuterplatz neighborhood within
Neukölln. Gentrification characterizes this neighborhood: “a great number of young people
between the age of 18 and 35 […] moving into the area, […] and [i]n recent years, the creative

27. Wexler 23
industries sector has seen an increasing number of start-ups [here]” (Statentwicklung). However,
Feast’s address, although proximate to this gentrifying neighborhood, does not lie within it.
On this particular street, Feast stands at the limit of gentrification; its location, like De
Certeau’s bridge, stands for “A middle place, composed of interactions and inter-views.” Here,
“the frontier is a sort of void, a narrative sym-bol of exchanges and encounters” (De Certeau,
127). What, in other locations may stand as one in a million stands out as a singularity in its
situational uniqueness. Such uniqueness charges the place with the tensions of the bounding
realms it holds apart: gentrified Neukölln stands on one side and yet-to-be-gentrified Neukölln
stands on the other. While it is merely a matter of time before the flow of startups and shared
office spaces flood down Weserstraße, Feast stands in not only a temporal vacancy but also a
signifying void between both.
Taking this tension into account, Sandler would likely argue that Feast is merely a
harbinger of the progression of gentrification—Feast will soon be joined by myriad other similar
institutions. However, Sandler argues that counterpreservation signifies “anti-gentrification”.
Thus, Feast appropriates the aesthetic of counterpreservation in a space considered on the brink
of gentrification. While according to Sandler the aesthetic stands as a sign for anti-gentrification,
Feast’s adoption of counterpreservation in fact robs the aesthetic of its symbolic clout turning the
original image of anti-gentrification institutions into one of if not pro-gentrification then at least
an aesthetic that both anti- and pro- gentrification institutions share. Theorist Henri Lefebvre
evokes a sense of the autonomous artwork in his assertion that, “what has been annihilated in the
earlier frenzy of growth now becomes an object of adoration. And former objects of utility now
pass for rare and precious works of art” (143), I argue that Feast falls somewhere in-between this
claim and Sandler’s. While the concrete features are not entirely divorced from their traditional

28. Wexler 24
signification that Lefebvre here asserts, they also do not adhere religiously to Sandler’s assertion
of political or anti-gentrification devotion.
Sandler’s non-commercial and anti-gentrification institutions further their agenda through
counterpreservation; however, Feast also uses counterpreservation and it does so in a
commercial setting. While Sandler paints counterpreservation as an aesthetic external to the
gentrification process, I argue that as the aesthetic becomes commercialized. This commercial
agenda overwrites counterpreservation’s original significance. The sign is not completely
designified because, as I will explain, one space can contain a pastiche of aesthetics whether they
are preservationist, counterpreservationist, or something else entirely. So, then, since Feast
employs the purportedly anti-gentrification aesthetic, it may not merely debunk the significance
of the aesthetic, but in considering other features, it could more create a new niche found in the
tensions between conflicting aesthetics— one perhaps outside the trend of gentrification and
outside its stark oppositions and binaries.
Feast’s floor covering, cement with an in-lay of tile covered by a glossy coating, evokes
more the “carefully controlled and preserved […] decayed surfaces of a building on
Auguststrasse […] sealed off beneath transparent veneer” (70) than a counterpreservational,
“willful incorporation of decay, of unfinished or incomplete elements, of dilapidation and
fragments” (Sandler, 72). Sandler derides the Augustrasse treatment of decay for exhibiting the
“vestiges of decay” as “part of the new urban experience of a city consumed by the tourist-
flâneur. An exciting touch of roughness subsists, but in an increasingly controlled and planned
fashion” (70). The varnished surface of Feast’s floor covering signifies this, according to
Sandler, hermetically sealed presentation of history.

29. Wexler 25
The layer of gloss spread across the remains of the floor effectively erects a museum-like
sheet of glass between the viewer and the artifact. In fact, Fracassa “found [the tile inlay] in a
historical building elements place way out in Brandenburg. It was expensive to buy and
expensive to put in”. Thus, the pastiche of historical elements—the domestic fuzz of flaking
plaster and the imported and incorporated tiles, are included in one space and one in which we
have exactly the “carefully controlled and preserved” dilapidation that Sandler mentions. Now,
what is the matter with this experience of history? As quoted above, Sandler qualifies the
experience of the “tourist-flâneur” as an experience of “consumption”. The gloss functions as a
barrier between the viewer and the subject thus establishing a safe distance from which the
viewer not only is impartial but also can consume the historical relics of the city as opposed to
experience their inherent memory unmediated.
Applying this assertion to Feast, one feature— the walls— evokes the non-consumerist
aesthetic of counterpreservation while the floors channel the consumerist and touristic aesthetic
of controlled preservation. While the floor covering evokes the flood of gentrification streaming
across the city, the walls evoke anti-gentrification forces. The concrete space puts two opposing
forces into dialogue with one another. And from this dialogue emerges the practically
unanswerable question: does Feast embody anti-gentrification in order to critique gentrification
or does it embody the anti-gentrification aesthetic in order to de-signify the aesthetic from anti-
gentrification? This question, while merely rhetorical, does provide a dialectic stepping point.
While for Sandler counterpreservation fills the gap between preservation and Sanierung or
renewal through cleaning, Feast fills the gap between the gentrification and anti-gentrification
aesthetics thus destabilizing the binary of the two.

30. Wexler 26
Sandler sets up a tension between gentrification and anti-gentrification aesthetics in
Berlin. She claims that the counterpreservation aesthetic signifies the “multiplicity and conflict
of historical narrative and events” (72), essentially not only by incorporating decay but also by
preserving the layered physical effects of history counterpreservation acts out against the
historical narrative. Sandler argues that counterpreservation stands more in support of a post-
modernist conglomeration of underrepresented narratives. However, Feast incorporates
Sandler’s aesthetic with a preservationist one. Paradoxically, by containing features that signify
both contradictory aesthetics, Feast operates within a counterpreservationist aesthetic of a
multiplicity of narratives.
This dialectic asks us to step outside of Feast’s walls and look at the space’s
environment. As Sandler says, “counterpreservation derives its force from the contrast with
renovated, conventional surroundings,” (73). Thus, although the aesthetic attempts to stand for
something external from the general aestheticization of history, it relies on this dominant
narrative of the built features around it. If the street were full of building after building
exhibiting counterpreservation then tensions would arise within the counterpreservation
aesthetic— one building may project the aesthetic of the Cold War while another may evoke the
aesthetic of the Second World War. If no buildings were remodeled or no buildings were
preserved, then counterpreservation itself would come to be a norm designifying its own
uniqueness.
So counterpreservation derives its “ineffable quality” not only from “the romance of
glumness, the gripping quality of surfaces slowly carved out by time and use, or violently torn by
aggression” (72), but also from the scarcity of this treatment of the physical remnants of history.
In a street of homogenous private buildings, Feast’s interior, open to a public, exposes it as

31. Wexler 27
containing a specific aesthetic. Furthermore, by combining the two aesthetics— the gloss of the
floor and the counterpreservationist decay of the wall— Feast evokes both opposing narratives
in a rarified form. In combining the two aesthetics, the contrast becomes embodied in one form
and this resulting aesthetic in turn contrasts with its mundane and residential surroundings.
In a following article, Sandler delves deeper into her concept of counterpreservation by
using the example of Haus Schwarzenberg, a mixed-use “non-commercial enclave surrounded by
gentrification” (2011, 693). One could argue that this space embodies all that Feast does not.
Haus Schwarzenberg stands in the midst of a restored and wealthy commercial center in Mitte—
the heart of Berlin. Feast stands on the outskirts of a still-gentrifying neighborhood towards the
edge of the city on a quiet and primarily residential street. The Haus contains many different
“non-commercial” entities including “an art gallery, two small historical museums, studios for
artists and designers, an independent movie theatre and a café” (691) while Feast sells food out
of very modest accommodations. Thus opposed, Feast is a commercial enclave surrounded by
non-gentrification. However dissimilar Feast and the Haus are to each other, they are strikingly
similar in that they both signify their differences to their surroundings through the
counterpreservationist aesthetic. Their counterpreservationist treatment of history—concretized
by the built environment that they occupy— sets them apart from their surrounding
environments. As Sandler puts it, “[d]ecrepitude is a way of marking the Haus Schwarzenberg
as different from its environment” (693). And for Feast decrepitude does the same.
Difference is not enough, though. The contrast between the singular space— either the
Haus or Feast— merely sets them apart from their surroundings as just that: something different.
In order to attribute signification to Feast’s counterpreservationist aesthetic, let us look to
Sandler’s perceived intent of Haus Schwarzenberg’s use of counterpreservation.

32. Wexler 28
Sandler attributes a social significance to the Haus’ counterpreservation aesthetic. She
argues that counterpreservation “incorporates the romance of glumness into the functional and
utilitarian preoccupations of everyday activities such as inhabiting, working, eating and
recreation”(696). Here, Sandler expresses a primacy of “everyday activities” (whether
commercial or non-) over the specifically non-commercial activities performed in the Haus or
other counterpreservationist spaces. She includes eating and working in these “everyday
activities” thus extending her argument to establishments like Feast. She implies that no matter
what activities that take place in Haus, the aesthetics’ primacy casts a counterpreservationist
shade over the entire space coloring it in an anti-gentrification light. The aesthetic façade
correlates directly to the actions that take place within the space. Thus, while she seems to be
concerned with the acts of gentrification, Sandler’s argument focuses on Haus as a “place” and
less on the institution as a “space”. De Certeau writes on the distinction between “space” and
“place” in The Practice of Everyday Life. To expand upon Sandler’s primarily place-based
analysis, I will invoke De Certeau to deepen my analysis of Feast.
Thus far we have merely read Feast in accordance with De Certeau’s definition of place.
He defines “place” as “the order (of whatever kind) in accord with which elements are
distributed in relationships of coexistence. It thus excludes the possibility of two things being in
the same location” (De Certeau 117). Sandler focuses on the Haus in this manner, “[w]hile the
singular character of the cultural centre stems in part from its alternative programme, that
character is also anchored by the building’s physical presence” (691). Sandler here makes the
distinction that she will proceed with an analysis of the Haus through the “instantaneous
configurations of positions” (DeCerteau 117) that it exhibits as opposed to the activating factors
that transpire there. Including action would transform her analysis into that of the Haus as a

33. Wexler 29
“space”. De Certeau defines space as, “the effect produced by the operations that orient it,
situate it, temporalize it, and make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs or
contractual proximities” (117). Thus, analysis of merely the aesthetics of a place fails to take
into consideration crucial dimensions— time, social interactions and functions (to name a few)—
that activate the place transforming that analysis into that of a space.
De Certeau aphorizes, “space is a practiced place” (117). And, while Feast’s aesthetic of
place— the concrete features that make it a distinct location— provide for a
counterpreservationist analysis, Feast’s situatedness in time and society flesh out much more.
Sandler’s concept of counterpreservation provides a singular plane upon which to situate Feast’s
aesthetic, this analysis is place-based. Now, in order to engage with Feast as an activated space,
I will turn to Sheridan and his analysis of indeterminate spaces in Berlin. His analysis engages
with the physical properties of place. However, from there he elevates his analysis to a study on
space by bringing into play the relationship that individuals have with the spaces and the social
forms that arise from the influence of spatial indeterminacy. To the foundational interpretation
of Feast through its counterpreservational aesthetic, Sheridan’s reading of space adds social and
subcultural dimensions.

34. Wexler 30
Chapter IV: Social Indeterminacy
Sheridan frames the argument of his paper, titled “The Space of Subculture in the City:
Getting Specific about Berlin’s Indeterminate Territories,” around a case study of one particular
building in Berlin that he encountered during his sojourn in the city. “The research and
observations examined here were made between 1994 and 1996, while [Sheridan] was studying
and working in Berlin and living in one of the buildings referred to in the case study. As such
the observations and research in this paper document a particular time in Berlin’s urban history
and development” (98). His method reflects my own, and just as our basis for argumentation is
similar, so too are the thrusts of our arguments. However, while Sheridan’s and my projects are
related, they differ in temporal and social context.
Sheridan’s analysis is grounded in a Besetztes Haus or “occupied house”— a space more
radically occupied than Feast; the Haus provides a living and working environment outside of
the norms of city living. The indeterminacy that Sheridan attributes to this space comes from the
freedom exercised by Haus’s residents in manipulating their built environment. The residents

35. Wexler 31
reject norms of spatial occupation. Likewise, I argue that Feast operates outside of normative
business structures demonstrating its own indeterminacy. However, a paradox develops in these
rejections of standard living- or business-practices: while Haus’s indeterminacy exudes anti-
capitalist politics through its cooperative social structuring, Feast’s indeterminacy operates with
a capitalist business agenda.
As Sheridan himself alludes, in “the last decade some of the indeterminate spaces and the
initiatives that took root in them have disappeared, while others have evolved into more
formalized scenarios” (118). Indeterminacy proves adaptable by temporal situation. However,
they find continuity in having “resulted from a combination of the spatial gaps within the city
and gaps within the cities regulatory forces” (102). Indeterminacy, although not necessarily
temporally situated, is physically grounded. It exists in spaces that dominant forces have
neglected if not rejected. Furthermore, “the condition they all share […] is the absence of the
deterministic forces of capital, ownership and institutionalization that, to a large degree govern
people’s relationship to the built environment” (103). According to Sheridan, without mediating
forces of capital, indeterminate spaces grant occupants liberated interactions with their space.
Here Sheridan exposes the freedom that indeterminate spaces allow their residents. However,
his definition hinges on the assumption that indeterminacy can only operate outside of a
capitalist agenda. Feast rejects this caveat. This rejection puts Feast on uneven ground. It is
now situated in the void between capitalist economic structures and the forces, like Haus, that
oppose them. Let us turn to the social interactions that develop in indeterminate spaces to see
how this void is filled.
Scholar Meri Louekari writes and Sheridan will come to state that “[t]emporary uses are
often strongly rooted in social networks,”(470) and such “uses are expected to generate milieus”

36. Wexler 32
(478). Here we see that the indeterminacy of a space directly reflects the resident initiative. Just
as Sheridan’s example of space-use stands as an alternative to the normative, I will show how
Feast’s occupation of indeterminate spaces offers insight to the milieu therein and enters into
dialogue with the question of normativity.
Sheridan, like Sandler, discusses a non-commercial space; however, he places a much
stronger emphasis on the interactions that take place between the physical structure and the
social structure therein. Both scholars ground their work in similar issues that arise from this
subject. They both write about the meaning-making that subcultures enact on alternative
spaces—or that which the space enacts on the subculture— and the tensions that arise in non-
normative space-use and treatment. However, while Sandler focuses more on the signification
of aesthetics, namely counterpreservation, Sheridan’s argument leans more toward the social
initiatives that reside in or evolve out of spaces that he deems indeterminate. He argues that
indeterminate spaces directly reflect the social structure that resides in them declaring the social
initiatives indeterminate by association. The space sets a standard on which residents model
their organization and motivation. Sheridan’s thesis interacts interestingly with the concept of
Feast as also an occupier of indeterminate space.2
As Fracassa admits, Feast exists under the auspices of a catering establishment. So,
while Haus expresses its indeterminacy in terms of space occupation, Feast does so in terms of
legislation. Feast finds its liberty in the voids left by institutional law making. Similarly
2
First, a caveat and one not unrelated to the caveat with Sandler’s argument: Feast is not a part
of the Berlin phenomenon of the mixed-use squatter-inspired, live/work, open-forum subset of
space use. It is a small-scale eating establishment. However, although a handful of these
establishments exist they are exceedingly underrepresented in the literature—ie. they do not exist
in the literature. While Berlin legislation has begun to foster it’s reputation as a capital for
alternative spaces such as the ones I’ve been referencing, it is not at the liberty to pardon
restaurant coding. Thus, as Suzy Fracassa, the purveyor of Feast says, she is “licensed as a
caterer and a catering kitchen. The space is not open to the public and this is all the difference”.

37. Wexler 33
operating outside of dominant culture, spaces like Haus find freedom in the spatial interstices
ignored by hegemonic structures. A catering license restricts Fracassa’s use of her space. Such
restrictions lead to creative loop holing. Alternative business plans skirt the laws while forging
new business methods that are not accounted for by legislation. This creativity, resonant and
appealing to Berlin’s creative industries and creative class, is a counteraction to dominant forces
and thus is not outside them but more in dialogue with and critique of them. The business
structure takes on an indeterminate air, one that lawmakers have yet to pin down, and one outside
of hegemonic business forces. Such an action aligns the business with a particular clientele that
values such alternative practices.
As Sheridan alludes in his article, even such places as Haus begin to show a capitalist
tendency no matter how periphery the capitalist agenda may be to these spaces. While “these
situations offered the opportunity for new uses and forms of living not possible within the
normal tenancy subdivisions” such spaces housed “many self-initiated programmes including
theatres, cinemas, venues, galleries, cafes, clubs, and community spaces, allowing these locations
to take on public, cultural, and political roles” (103). While such initiatives played a “political”
role, they only did so once they became public spaces and they became public spaces through
offering a consumable good like food, drink or art. The indeterminacy of cooperative spaces
open such spaces up to the possibility of becoming moneymaking establishments like the ones
listed above without the capitalist signification normally found therein. Thus, as indeterminate
spaces reflect the dominant economic structures but do not embody it entirely, they better
highlight the choices each has made in turning away from them. A “far more multiple, nebulous,
and imaginative sense of memory persists in these undervalued, undercoded […] spaces,
critiquing the discursive closure upon the mnemonic meaning of other [standard-issue] sites”

38. Wexler 34
(Edensor, 836). This plurality external from binaries and afforded by counter-action binds Feast
and Haus to the indeterminacy found on the “urban margins” (835).
Sheridan notes that in Das Passagen Werk, Walter Benjamin describes dialectical
images as “those ‘rough and jagged places’ at which the continuity of tradition breaks down and
reveals ‘cracks’ providing a hold for anyone wishing to get beyond these points”(108). What
more appropriate way to characterize indeterminacy? Where hegemonic spaces fail to meet, the
“cracks” that opens up between them— whether in the case of Haus as a previously vacant
space, or in the case of Feast as an indeterminate business— provides entry into an alternative
space beyond, however bounded by, the surrounding normativity. Sheridan then makes the move
to question whether the physical indeterminacy of the space can be projected onto the social
indeterminacy of the occupation therein, ““Do these spaces have a formative effect, or do they
just provide space for existing subcultural groups?” (112). With Feast the question becomes
more nuanced— Sandler’s approach may shade Feast as physically indeterminate; however, with
Sheridan I argue that not only is the space indeterminate but so is the business structure within it.
Operating under Berlin’s relatively high if not supportive legislative radar, (Louekari
2006) Feast still does not fit the model of a standard restaurant even by Berlin’s alternative
standards of business. While post-industrial cities pride themselves more and more on such
defining characteristics as their cultural capital and entrepreneurship (Loukeri 2006; Heebels and
van Aalst) it remains difficult to stretch the boundaries of heavily regulated industries such as the
restaurant business. Thus, the measures that Feast takes toward a clandestine existence serves
doubly— evasion of the public allows for a new identity within the broad definition of restaurant
and also creates an elite “in-the-know” clientele. While Feast functions as a restaurant in that it
serves dishes off a menu to customers sitting at tables, the organizing structure that surrounds

39. Wexler 35
this “event” evades tradition. The dance to be done in order to enter the doors of Feast sets it
beyond the reaches of just any member of the creative class. Truth be told, “the space is not
open to the public and this is all the difference” (Fracassa). The measures that Feast takes in
order to depart from tradition strengthen its alterity and prove crucial in the formation of an
insular resident subculture.
As Sheridan points out, subkultur is “commonly used, not just in sociological and
anthropological contexts, but also to describe various forms of ‘fringe’ cultural production”
(109). The term “cultural production” evokes not only the development of a culture but also
recalls themes of capitalist production and consumption. It therefore implies that culture is made
through the producing and consuming of cultural goods and experiences. Production is thus a
cultural function and also is inextricable from capitalist systems of production and consumption.
Thus, “cultural production” and its primacy exist in a capitalist society wherein cultures, or in
this case Subkulturen, express their identity or alterity through production of cultural goods.
Cultural production is not just the development of a culture but also how that culture interacts
with the capitalist model of expression. Let us return now to the concrete facts of Feast in order
to examine its specific cultural production and thus expression of individuality and alterity.
Because it is licensed as a catering business, Feast does not take walk-in customers— as
a private dining room, customers must place themselves on the “invite-list” in order to enter the
space3
. Because Fracassa herself maintains this list, what began as a small friend and client
circle has grown merely by word of mouth and a handful of blog and local rag write-ups. Her
email list, as of May 2011 “numbered 1,000 potential guests” (Stelzner, 2011 own translation).
Feast lives up to its privacy by: 1) one must be invited to dine via the email list, 2) one must
3
This also helps with planning the amount of food production. Fracassa attempts to operate with
a very small margin of error in order to keep waste low and profit high.

40. Wexler 36
reserve one’s seat in advance, and 3) there are no normal business hours, 4) the protective rolling
grate remains locked over the door and windows aside from the irregular hours it is open for
business, 5) even when a meal is being served the front door remains locked—one must knock to
be let in, and 6) there is no sign visible from the street (or anywhere for that matter) saying what
lies behind these perpetually locked doors. What operates as a creative entrepreneurial way for
Feast to skate between the lines of legislations functions as a privacy that could potentially deter
business. In the meantime, such secrecy fosters an extremely narrow albeit loyal and what some
may deem elite subculture.
Through a capitalist model of cultural production and consumption a similarly capitalist
subkultur is produced. As an official of the Berlin Senate was quoted, “We have to be open to
new ideas and initiatives, even in semi-legal spheres” (Heebels, 356). Semi-legality, as proven
by artists’ squats and other nontraditional practices, is familiar to Berlin lawmakers. Thus, not
even the culture produced by Feast is exempt from being folded into dominant systems of
cultural production. While it now resides between the lines of legislation carving out a special
niche in a bureaucratic void, it is merely a matter of time before dominant forces fold this “new
semi-legal initiative” into the municipal system.
So, Feast and Haus, however different they are, share indeterminacy as a
phenomenon that separates their social structures from normative practices. This alienation
subsequently comes to create a distinct social milieu. With the relationship between
indeterminate space and subculture in mind, Sheridan explains, “[t]he specific nature and fabric
of the buildings becomes magnified by the absence of external deterministic forces [allowing]
the occupant to interact with the built fabric as though it were a landscape that is settled rather
than a structure where the rules of occupancy are pervasive” (117). Here, Sheridan alludes to a

41. Wexler 37
mentality that develops when a group of people strikes-out on their own to forge or expand new
frontiers.
Like a band of explorers their refusal of “external deterministic forces” unite them.
Alienated from mainstream culture and unified by their shared environment, this environment
becomes a key factor in the new identity of the subculture. So, a paradox appears: while
indeterminacy allows for a blank slate upon which occupants or participants have freedom to
write; this freedom and new code of signification mimics the code-making found in the
hegemonic structure. So subculture, in reacting to dominant culture, mirrors it.
Sheridan writes that, “subcultural groups construct meaning by taking those objects,
signs, or forms from dominant culture and injecting them with their own meaning” (110). While
he illustrates this point through the very concrete examples of truly discarded materials being
reappropriated by a subculture, Feast embarks on a more bureaucratic measure of appropriation.
Feast takes the material of traditional businesses namely traditional restaurants and
reappropriates it to fit between legislation restrictions. While such reappropriation allows for
Sheridan’s “injection of meaning” into the hegemonic material, it more importantly also
valorizes Berlin’s capitalist economy—instead of totally rejecting it, Feast adapts to its strictures
while also showing how adaptable the strictures are. While Sheridan’s explanation of the use of
materials evokes an anarchistic refusal to operate within traditional object signification, Feast’s
appropriation of traditional capitalist practices for nontraditional yet also capitalist purposes
demonstrates how ensconced in capitalism even the alternative scene has become.
Feast’s subculture does not reject the dominant structure, but more carves out a niche
within or forms an outgrowth from it. From this removed stance the establishment’s structure,
less supported by a cohort of similar structures, is more vulnerable to critique. As Berlin is

42. Wexler 38
overwhelmingly creative and entrepreneurial (Louekari, 2006; Heebels and van Aalst; Huyssen;
Lange et al.; Färber, 2008; Ladd, 2000), Feast merely pushes the creativity a little bit further.
Feast is a legal catering business but appears to be a restaurant by engaging with the traditional
signifying elements found within a common eating establishment. It does not reject the concept
of an eating institution. Feast just questions the norms and experiments with the variables.
Sheridan posits that “spaces outside of hegemony, offering the experience of urban fragments
removed from the spatial and temporal continuum of the city, suggests that these spaces may
indeed have a formative effect” (112). I argue that in the present-day iteration of this
phenomenon, as found in Feast, the radicalism of indeterminacy is negated by the capitalist
agenda of the institution. As Feast aligns itself with a capitalist agenda indeterminacy as an
adjective now modifies alternative. The institution bastardizes the economic signs of alterity as
demonstrated by spaces like Haus. In doing so Feast renders such alterity weak and its own
existence as an alternative establishment even weaker.
Thus, indeterminate spaces may lead to the development of a subculture, however
indeterminacy itself does not necessarily dictate the political symbolism of the social institution.
Indeterminacy is merely an aesthetic or social marker of a space. It engages with but does not
question the normative. In the case of Haus, indeterminacy proves to be a reaction against
tradition. In the case of Feast, indeterminacy evolves out of threading through bureaucratic
loopholes while doubling as a creative advertising stunt further embedding Feast in the dominant
economic system.
While it may appear that Feast’s creative manipulation of legality enters into the realm
of art, this practice could just as easily be for the sake of capital. These two realms, never
separate, are always contending with each other. In theories of the avant-garde, where

43. Wexler 39
boundaries are pushed for the sake of pushing, Renato Poggioli writes: the artistic revolution is
not a social revolution (96). This is quite a stark statement but if it is the case then
indeterminacy, as an artistic expression, is, according to Poggioli, not a social movement. And
further, the creative expression at work in this institution, if artistic, instead of making a political
statement about legislation in fact aligns itself with manipulative dominant practices of aesthetic
coercion. Furthermore, it turns its departures from dominant practices into artistic production as
opposed to political expression reappropriating indeterminacy for its own consumerist purposes.
Such practices resonate with the current economic climate in Berlin. The creative economy
valorizes aesthetics as an integral aspect of business endeavors. Thus, the social realm of Feast
as a space contributes to its symbolic realm as a signifier for trends in contemporary urban
culture.

44. Wexler 40
Chapter V: Symbolic Implications
As I have shown in the last two chapters, Feast’s physical space, characterized by its
counterpreservational aesthetic, and its social space, defined by indeterminate business practices,
destabilize the signification of each co-opting them for capitalist purposes. Feast reappropriates
the counterpreservation aesthetic and compounds it with conflicting physical features. This
hybrid of aesthetic signification divorces the supposed meanings of each visual trait enlisting
them in a capitalist agenda. This demonstrates the modern-day Berlin nostalgia, one that they are
willing to pay for. From here, I examined more closely the milieu selected by not only the
appeal of the physical aesthetic but also the social aesthetic of the space: the space adopts an
alternative business model in order to exist and this alternative existence is what people are
attracted to. Furthermore, these business practices result in a clandestine space out of which
arises exclusivity; this very exclusivity establishes the social space. “Social space itself consists
of the relative status positions people perceive themselves to occupy […] It is always with
reference to these perceived relations in social space that people acquire and judge cultural taste”

45. Wexler 41
(Friedland 33). Compounded by the counterpreservation aesthetic and the business’
indeterminacy, the acquisition and judgment of status positions comes to define Feast as a
rarified social space. With these two elements of space, the physical and the social, comes a
third: symbolic, or the meaning that we give to a place. Such meaning arises from the larger
context in which a space is situated. Let us look at Feast as symbolic of a paradigm shift in
urban theory: the post-Fordist creative economy elevates such spaces from being merely an
exclusive social space to one heavily ensconced in the cities’ economic production.
The post-Fordist creative economy is an economy based on the exchange of ideas rather
than goods. As in all economic changes, this shift in commodity and production has just as
much influence on constituents’ lifestyles. While mass production and assembly lines
standardized the Fordist lifestyle, the creative economy similarly influences the day to day in
Berlin and subsequently in Feast. In addition to this perspective and in returning to the urban
context set out at the beginning of this paper, I will analyze the space from the perspective of its
larger urban environment and how the phenomenon of Feast reflects upon the city.
As Michel De Certeau declared in 1984, “the dividing line no longer falls between work
and leisure” (29) as it did during the peak of Fordist production and consumption. Thus, not
only are work and leisure no longer separate entities, their combined product has resulted in
something different, a dialectic containing elements of the two. This “something new” can be
found in Feast, an institution that establishes a territory outside of normative businesses. As
scholars observe in the current economic climate in Berlin, Feast reads as synecdoche to the
general creative ethos of the city.
When it comes to the case of a creative city, social interactions undergo a paradigm shift.
As oft-quoted and just as often derided critic Richard Florida asserts, creativity has come to

46. Wexler 42
dominate the industries of many developed and even developing nations— ideas rule the
economic market as opposed to manufactured commodities. This change in economy has lead to
shifts in the value of not only creativity but also space and the working and living environment.
Whereas factories and office buildings housed the standard nine-to-fivers, now the creative
economy infiltrates workspaces, homes and leisure time. Therefore, the spaces in which people
work and live come to carry the traits of each. As De Certeau already stated, these two realms
are no longer so strictly binary. Furthermore, in “Berlin’s Creative Industries: Governing
Creativity”, Bastian Lange goes further to say that, “Space and time become hybrid as work and
leisure blend” (538). The rise of the creative industry in Berlin feeds heavily off of not just
social organization but also spatial and temporal organization. While this could be read as a
liberation from the “day at the office” it also means that the day at the office is no longer
bounded by distinct times and places, it comes to infiltrate other realms of existence.
“Creative production not only happens in a particular place, but its players constitute
space by various forms of social interaction which in its turn is constitutive of creative
production” (Lange 536). Here, we see how intertwined the creative process is to not just
production but also social and spatial interactions. Working as a “creative” means that the
workplace bleeds into all the space that one occupies. And thus, “the case of Berlin
[demonstrates] that creative industries are characterized by growing culturepreneurship, an
expression of a new flexible form of work and entrepreneurship, embedded in a distinct urban
environment” (544). Here, Lange addresses not only the creative activity that transpires in
Berlin but also the entrepreneurship that is involved in this economic shift. With Feast, we have
Fracassa and her eating establishment as instances of culturepreneurship and we also have her
clientele who are attracted to the institution not only aesthetically but also for the milieu of the

47. Wexler 43
other clientele. This pre-selected group of like-minded creative entrepreneurs conflate their
leisure time, such as their time spent at dinner, with their work time and the hybrid of the two is
spent at Feast collaborating and making business connections.
Applying his thoughts on “culturepreneurship” to the very specific case of Feast can
further refine Lange’s study of Berlin’s creative industry. As Lange alludes, “Semi-public place
(cafes, clubs, galleries, etc.) become the privileged space of information exchange” (537). Not
only is Feast a space of cultural production— Fracassa herself embarks on what Lange calls,
“culturepreneurship” through her alternative-business venture— but also, the institution provides
a space for the elbow-rubbing required for the culture industry to flourish. Lange valorizes the
café as a place for creative community leading to collaboration and thus heightened production.
The patrons of the restaurant are not only united by their “in-ness”—the exclusivity of the space
creates a “cred”, ultimately selecting a milieu— but this in-ness is reinforced by the communal
dining experience. Community is key for creative development and thus communication has
become crucial in production. As they morph to resemble each other, Berlin’s work and leisure
spaces become creative business environments.
Berlin is dotted with collective work-spaces; once empty storefronts now house think-
tanks and start-up companies. While window-shopping along hip commercial streets in
Kreuzberg or Neukölln one may find oneself in a voyeuristic state— picture windows display not
vintage shoes or handmade bags but instead frame a group of young professionals meeting
around a table or working individually at their computers. Office spaces are no longer stacked in
high-rises behind one-way windows, work is not longer nine to five. Wi-fi has now not only
colonized coffee shops turning them into hushed workspaces but also workspaces have now
colonized street-level commercial spaces. Transpose this scene onto Feast: the only difference is

48. Wexler 44
that in front of the culturepreneurs are not clipboards or MacBooks but consumable dishes and
cocktails. The grates over the windows are rolled up to reveal picture windows framing, again,
not vintage shoes or handmade bags, nor this time a shared workspace. Instead, dialectically
speaking, here are both together under a different name and something else entirely. A
commodity, food, is being consumed and work is, in a post-Fordist sense, being done. Diners
dine around communal tables providing for intimacy among strangers. And these strangers come
here peripherally for the food but more for this privileged intimacy. Fracassa has effectually
hand picked the clientele as a curator picks artwork: for the double purpose of aesthetics and the
creative market.
Fracassa selects her clientele through the exclusivity of her online network. The
clientele, in turn, increase the value of the dining experience as the diners are primarily members
of Berlin’s creative class and instruments to the creative industry. This value too is a hot
commodity. As scholar Alexa Färber writes,
the specific imagery of Berlin as the city of bohemian, alternative lifestyles and
weak economic power offers a cultural reference where economic weakness and
failure may be considered as a resource. Those who >>invest themselves<< and
their enterprise in the cultural economy sector in Berlin often do so as
entrepreneurial bohemians who turn bohemian culture into an enterprise. They
relate successfully to an imagery of Berlin as a ground for bohemian lifestyle
(416)
Färber here grounds her analysis in the aesthetic of Berlin specifically citing its “imagery”.
Feast’s marketing of the authentic through counterpreservation mirrors the economic aesthetic of
“weakness and failure”. Färber calls upon the old visual trope of bohemia. However, with

49. Wexler 45
Berlin, being bohemian means investing in an enterprise. Capitalized bohemia, marketing new
goods as though they were old, is a relatively familiar business move. As in Henri Lefebvre,
“what had been annihilated in the earlier frenzy of growth now becomes an object of adoration.
And former objects of utility now pass for rare and precious works of art” (143). While
counterpreservation definitely speaks to this aesthetic attraction, Färber takes the aesthetic to a
new level by trading in people for commodities or concrete spaces. Relics of dilapidation are
fetishized into renewed or even improved commodities and now the social aesthetic of bohemia
too is commodified by an economy that has little more to offer.
This stance calls for a paradigm shift in what normally constitutes a resource— the
concept of wealth is turned on its head. In terms of bohemia, the poorer the better—or in this
case at least the poorer looking the better. While the aesthetic applies to the people in Färber’s
essay, the city too has caught on. According to the former Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, Berlin is
“poor but sexy.” Illustrating Färber’s point, this quote has become an advertising slogan for the
city. Regardless of its popularity as a catch phrase, “poor but sexy” encapsulates the redefining
of commodity. If poor is sexy then even adopting the semblance of poor can be enriching for a
cultural enterprise. Bohemian, as currency, renders Berlin rich.
Bohemian, or “poor but sexy”, colors the atmosphere of Feast. Not only do the same
folk frequent the space united by their previous ties to Fracassa and the network created by
“word-of-mouth,” but the ties are seemingly strengthened by the communal dining experience.
Communality, resonant with Berlin’s communist past, echoes in current collective working
environments and alternative living situations such as squatter communities. However, as I
explored this concept with indeterminacy in the previous section, while the ethos of such

50. Wexler 46
establishments may inform the structure of Feast they do so in misleading ways. In Feast,
behind the sense of community lies capitalist consumption.
Communal dining is not unusual these days. Chic up-scale restaurants have appropriated
this marker of the lower-class single workingman’s repast. Traditionally and within the
established binary of high and low culture, the shared dining table signifies a sense of equality.
Historically, “breaking bread” together signifies fraternity and now these signifiers have been co-
opted by high dining. Like marketing the ethos of poor bohemia, the old familial ethic of eating
together at one large table has turned into a signifier of haute cuisine and hierarchy. However,
“The analytic value of a binary model of low and high culture is, questionable for discussing the
alternative culture, which position[s] itself outside these traditional conceptualizations” (Von
Dirke, 143). Dialectically, Feast positions itself outside of this cultural binary aligning itself
with alternative culture. While liberating, this “outside positioning” can also be tenuous.
The fraternal sign of communal eating is now combined with the elitism of haute cuisine.
Further weight is added to the dining experience through alienation effected by the digital age.
Thus, not only are dining practices inverted, but also the importance of the social relationships
established or strengthened through this sensual and intimate experience is increased. Dining
together is also a throwback to pre-digital age sociality. However, with social networking
precedents, added pressure is exerted on this moment of nostalgia and memory. Professional
networking through social media, and precedent for the gatherings at Feast, comes to infiltrate
social networking at the communal dinner table.
Scholars Jason Potts and Stuart Cunningham, illustrate the importance of social networks
to the Creative Industries. These industries “rely, to a greater extent than other socio-economic
activity, on word of mouth, taste, cultures, and popularity, such that individual choices are

51. Wexler 47
dominated by information feedback over social networks rather than innate preferences” (169-
70). Thus, the synthesis of these epochal eating rituals comes together in creative production and
consumption with the addition of hyper social awareness. As Lefebvre asserts, we fetishize
historical objects as nostalgic signifiers. This nostalgia becomes problematized when the
nostalgia is applied to social structures like eating rituals. As in Feast the communal dining
experience becomes a foil of by-gone rituals yet in the new economic climate these rituals are
over-written by economic motivation. The livelihood of the creative industries depends on the
“interaction of human ideas with the human environment” (Potts, 176). However, this
professional livelihood comes at the cost of authentic human interaction, one not mediated by
opportunistic networking.
Destabilizing the binary of work and leisure, Berlin’s Creative Economy opens a void for
what Lange calls a “new flexible form of work and entrepreneurship” (544). Feast steps into this
space of everyday life and creates a new forum borrowing from old practices yet inverting them.
Feast creates symbolic space unlike traditional spaces of work or spaces of leisure by conflating
the two as well as by entering into a dialectical relationship with social signifiers of both lower
and upper class communal dining. These inversions not only destabilize original social models
but also forge a new territory of signification. This new epistemological territory, however,
destabilizes traditional models symbolism without necessarily establishing new ones. The void,
once merely empty, now appears full but is filled with empty signifiers establishing yet another
void.

52. Wexler 48
Conclusion
In this particular space, creative and capitalist manipulation of established symbolism
divorces the symbols from their original meaning. Within Berlin’s Feast this occurs in the three
spatial dimensions, physical, social, and symbolic.
Physically, Feast appears to adopt the aesthetic of counterpreservation. This aesthetic
provides for a physical treatment outside of preservation and decay. However, Feast, bastardizes
this aesthetic by introducing not only a pastiche of other foreign historical materials but also by
marketing the aesthetic. Feast therefore separates counterpreservation as a symbolic holdout of
anti-capitalism. From there we moved on to Feast’s socially indeterminate business structure.
While related to the social indeterminacy found in the alternative space Haus, the social
organization of Feast enacts an opposite effect. Instead of evoking indeterminacy to create a
system independent from dominant forces, Feast’s indeterminacy in fact reverses this effect
rendering an elite social environment and one based on capitalist consumption. Finally, we have
looked at the symbolic space of Feast, what this space means as an instrument in its urban

53. Wexler 49
economic context. In this final section we have seen how yet again Feast has destabilized
binaries, those of high and low culture. And yet again, for the sake of capitalist enterprise, fills a
void produced by such destabilization with economic gain. Exposing the gap between two
opposed things, be they in the physical, social, or symbolic realm, reveals a new space begging
to be written on.
As an imperative, Huyssen writes, Berlin’s “voids must be filled” (69). Like the bounds
presented by conceptual binaries, the city too contains voids. However, Berlin’s voids are so
abundant that their bounds are omnipresent. Huyssen’s barrage illustrates this point, “Empire,
war, and revolution; democracy, fascism, Stalinism and the cold war were played out here” (60).
With each era comes new signs and values which citizens manipulate in transitional moments.
Huyssen passes over such transitional moments, the voids between eras. In this reductive move,
she passes over the moments that provide a precedent for the coming era. Regimes do not occur
as quantum leaps. In each transitional moment, in each temporal void, the built environment
comes up for symbolic election. The change in economic climate allows for a re-definition of
symbolic goods.
Geographically speaking, Berlin’s voids provide physical space for innovation. Creative
institutions fill them. The freedom allowed by this abundance of space, however, also allows for
the appropriation of traditional signs for the sake of capitalistic gains. Feast does this. Theodor
Adorno writes: “Society deceives us when it says that it allows things to appear as if they are
there by mankind’s will. In fact, they are produced for profit’s sake; they satisfy human needs
only incidentally. They call forth new needs and maintain them according to the profit motive”
(17). Thus, Feast deceives. Feast produces food—that which satisfies human needs— merely
as a guise behind which other motives reside. These other things that Feast produces are

54. Wexler 50
produced for “profit’s sake”. “Produced for profit’s sake”, counterpreservational walls, elusive
business structures, and communal dining all falsely fall under the auspices of “mankind’s will”.
Deceptive authenticity lures the customers for the purpose of profit.
As urban theorist Robert Mugauer writes, “In order to maintain a level of citizenship in a
city that is transitioning from industrial to technological design too could colonize or convert
sterile and hostile environments […]—design by subversion and occupation” (275). While some
instances of occupancy that we have looked at, like Haus and the Bezetzes Haus, seem to assert
their citizenship, Feast’s manipulation of the available spaces and cultural signifiers lays claim to
the city and to its citizens. Mugauer’s reading of spatial occupation is perhaps too liberal
because even alternative occupancy can deceive the resident social milieu. The subversion in
Feast creates only a semblance of urban citizenship because it does so for profits’ sake.
In transitional times, an overabundance of symbols is available to be reclaimed and
rewritten. The many-level void in which Feast exists exposes it to a wealth of symbolic
vocabulary. However, with great wealth comes exploitable power. Such power becomes
optimistically democratized by another urban theorist William J. Gavin who asserts that “The
city constitutes the material of the artists […] we are all condemned to be artists” (141). Such a
condemnation, one of forced meaning making, constitutes the task of Feast. And Feast chooses
to fill its proverbial canvas with capitalist strokes. Feast fills one of Berlin’s physical, social,
and symbolic voids with not only inverted but also denuded symbolism deceiving urban citizens
with capitalist motives under the auspices of authenticity. In being written upon in this manner
the void as an unwritten-upon space becomes not only a void but also a void space. Through its
inauthenticity and acts of deception, Feast renders all three modes of spatial signifying void.

55. Wexler 51
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