In the summer semester, we will explore what “good housekeeping” means today. Drawing on the popular magazine of the same name, which for over 140 years has guided American and later global audiences on how to run a household, we will ask how we might move from the idea of managing a single household toward more shared and collective approaches. At the same time, we will challenge the ways in which the magazine has historically framed these ideas in strongly heteronormative terms, reinforcing norms around gender, domestic labor, and the role of the wife as homemaker, someone expected to invest additional and often invisible labor to maintain a well kept home.
 

The times in which we find ourselves, marked by multiple crises from environmental to housing, as well as broader social, economic, and above all political challenges, reframe the question of “good housekeeping” to include a much more complex approach to rethinking and maintaining space. In this context, keeping a house fit is not only a matter of upkeep, but also a strategy to prevent vacancy and decay. This involves exploring approaches such as reuse, refurbishment, maintenance, and selective addition or removal. It also means identifying communities willing to contribute to these efforts rather than relying solely on financial resources.
 

This is why, in this semester, we will ask how existing buildings whose programs no longer fit their envelope or location can be sustainably transformed and reimagined. How can spaces be reorganized to support more collective forms of life sustaining care work? And how might buildings be managed with people’s needs, rather than profit, at their core?
 

As a case study, we will work with a long vacant 1990s block in the center of Berlin. The mixed use building on Friedrichstraße known as Quartier 206 was conceived as a symbol of prosperity and luxury in post unification Berlin. Some thirty years after its opening, the assumptions on which it was built, Friedrichstraße as a flaneur mile in the city center and the reliable purchasing power of its visitors, have proven fragile at best.

Building on its existing material and symbolic substance, we will ask how luxury and prosperity might be reframed in relation to contemporary, non profit oriented needs. How can we reimagine Quartier 206 in ways that allow it not only to be maintained, but to remain active, relevant, and collectively sustained? Rather than preserving an outdated promise of exclusivity, the project invites a shift toward forms of value rooted in use, care, and shared responsibility.

Classes are on Wednesdays 10 am to 5 pm, in R236, morning and afternoon sessions, with a lunch break (from 12-1pm)

Team: Prof. Ana Filipovic, L.A. Océane Vé-Réveillac, TT. Quirin Grubert