Unpacking the middleground of creative cities: spatiotemporal dynamics in the configuration of the Berlin design field

ABSTRACT

This paper sheds a light on the middleground of creative cities, highlighted as a crucial intermediary between creative scenes on the underground and formal institutions on the upperground. Tracing the spatiotemporal dynamics in the emergence of the Berlin-based design field over time, the study suggests that a productive middleground is itself historically and spatially conditioned. Elaborating extant knowledge on creative field emergence, we show that middleground structures can emerge bottom-up through space-specific rather than sector-specific creative practices, and require active organization and configuration. They can, increasingly, also be of a virtual nature.

KEYWORDS:

• creative cities
• field configuration
• intermediaries
• design
• spatiotemporal analysis

JEL:

• A14
• R3
• R11
• R58

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the following colleagues for providing helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper: Jesper Strandgaard, André Spicer, Simone Schiller-Merkens, Suntje Schmidt and Joerg Sydow. The authors presented this paper at the European Group of Organization Studies (EGOS) Colloquium 2012, the 2011 Workshop by the Regional Studies Association (RSA) on ‘Theorizing the Experience Economy’, and the 2nd European Colloquium on Culture, Creativity and Economy 2013, where they received further useful feedback from various scholars.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2017.1413239.

ORCID

Elke Schüßler http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7505-4148

Notes

1. Berlin’s Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises founded the ‘Projekt Zukunft’ in 1998 to support the development of the creative industries in Berlin (see www.berlin.de/projektzukunft). It played a key role in funding projects, platforms and events in the Berlin design field.

2. Most data sources were in German; quoted passages were translated into English by the authors themselves.