Heating a wood-fired oven takes time, as does preparing the bread dough. In contrast to the quick sandwich on the hand, such a procedure seems backworldly. It is only revealed on second glance that even in the present city, care and time are important ingredients that shape our cityscape.

The Backhauswagen is a free, accessible, mobile, providing and caring infrastructure for an area in transformation: a bread oven, fermentation chamber and smoker in car-trailer format.

For a decade now, active citizens’ initiatives have been fueling the public discussion about the future of the “Dragonerareal”, and have meanwhile turned it into a model urban development project of Berlin, dedicated to the cooperative participation of the urban community, developers and administration. In the open process, it is now clear, above all, that everything on the extensive site in the center of Berlin, between Kreuzberg and Schöneberg, will be in a constant state of flux over the next few years.

In order to create the possibility in the building site situation to shift the examination of material and non-material processes on site, the Backhauswagen offers a small entity of basic supply and comfort of stay – through the production of bread, baked goods and a communal baking and cooking moment.

With the perspective of here and now, it offers the possibility to build community and to talk about the future from the present, to plan and to formulate demands on site. When a new phase of construction begins, the Backhauswagen is moved, adaptable to the dynamics of development that cannot be foreseen.

As a nomadic place, the bakery on wheels can open up the area and carry ideas to the neighborhood, but also reach out to people to connect them with the Dragonerareal. The welcome product, the baked goods, transport a taste of their origin to the city, because bread, in addition to its meaning as a nourishing base, also carries that of a communal activity: the production of dough, the care and exchange of sourdough cultures, and the exciting moment of baking together with fire potentially connect even across conflicting views. In this sense, the mobile oven is intended to be an active social meeting place for those already involved, local residents and interested citizens.