Book contents
- Dramas of Dignity
- Dramas of Dignity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Below Potsdamer Platz
- 1 The Corporate Micro-city Potsdamer Platz
- 2 Characters from the Corporate Underworld
- 3 From Feces to Flowers
- 4 Separate in the Same Boat
- 5 When Worlds Collide
- 6 “Back to the Dark Side”
- Leaving the Minus Area Behind
- Postscript
- Appendix
- References
- Index
1 - The Corporate Micro-city Potsdamer Platz
Cleaners’ Presence from Below
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
- Dramas of Dignity
- Dramas of Dignity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Below Potsdamer Platz
- 1 The Corporate Micro-city Potsdamer Platz
- 2 Characters from the Corporate Underworld
- 3 From Feces to Flowers
- 4 Separate in the Same Boat
- 5 When Worlds Collide
- 6 “Back to the Dark Side”
- Leaving the Minus Area Behind
- Postscript
- Appendix
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores how the spatial segregation of Potsdamer Platz is not a matter of architectural design, but rather a particular social mapping that interrelates with status. Potsdamer Platz is designed to reinforce status hierarchies that separate the upperworld and underworld. Whereas the upperworld is shiny and spacious, the underworld is dark, labyrinthine, cramped and malodorous. These worlds have distinct populations: shoppers, tourists, white-collar workers and wealthy residents above, cleaners and other workers below. The cleaners have access to the upperworld for the purpose of cleaning it, but the people from above cannot enter the underworld. It remains hidden, buried spatially and discursively, making cleaners into an invisible “presence from below.” However, cleaners experience themselves and their place at Potsdamer Platz not just as an invisible presence from below. They are part of a workers’ scene that extends from the corporate underworld to the upperworld. The underworld is also more than a dark and sticky space for them. They turn to it as a place of social encounters, of taking breaks and withdrawing from the gaze of managers and clients alike.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dramas of DignityCleaners in the Corporate Underworld of Berlin, pp. 12 - 38Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022