Tucked behind Revaler Straße near Warschauer Straße in Friedrichshain, RAW Gelände is a graffiti-smeared railway yard turned playground: a big indoor skate hall, a climbing wall built into a surviving WW2 bunker, clubs, bars, rehearsal rooms, street art spaces, a flea market and, more recently, the Afro-Caribbean venue Maaya with its pool. Over 80 independent projects have grown up organically here since 1994, and it's one of the few places in Berlin that still feels like the post-reunification city — scruffy, improvised, and full of possibility.
The site itself has lived several lives. Built in 1867 as the Royal Prussian Railway Workshop, it grew into a huge repair operation employing well over a thousand workers by the 1880s. Under the Nazis it used 2,000 forced labourers; Allied bombing destroyed 80% of its buildings, though the thick bunker walls survived. East German railways ran it until 1994, when Deutsche Bahn shut it down and eventually sold it off. Grassroots users moved in, and by the 2000s venues like Club Cassiopeia, Skatehalle Berlin and the Der Kegel climbing wall had taken root.
Now the future is in doubt. The Göttingen-based investor Kurth, which bought the 52,000-square-metre western half in 2015, issued cease-and-desist orders against several venues in January, citing fire safety — claims tenants dispute. Negotiations with Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg politicians collapsed, and in mid-June Cassiopeia, the anchor for several other projects, was given two weeks to leave. A rave-themed demonstration followed on 19 June, and a petition under the banner Raw Retten ("Save RAW") is gathering signatures.
Campaigners, led by local architect Carsten Joost, argue there's no financial need for the wholesale redevelopment shown in the investor's masterplan, which features large commercial blocks and a high-rise echoing the Amazon Tower across the bridge. They point out the land is already worth roughly ten times the purchase price, with annual rental income near €2 million — about a 7% return. Similar Berlin stand-offs at Holzmarkt and Uferhallen ended in compromise; locals want the same here, ideally with the previously discussed 30-year lease at affordable rents. Councillor Florian Schmidt is still trying to get everyone back to the table.
For travellers, why care? Because RAW is exactly the kind of place people come to Berlin for — the Sunday flea market alone draws huge crowds, and venues like Urban Spree's street art galleries are fixtures on any Friedrichshain wander. If you're visiting, go now: catch the Van Gogh immersive exhibition before it ends in August, skate, climb the bunker, or just drink a beer in the yard. And if it matters to you, the petition is live. Whether RAW survives depends on decisions being made in the coming months.
