There are images that have exposed Munich’s housing policy. Almost eight years ago, prominent artists in gorilla costumes hijacked a city house on Müllerstrasse and quickly furnished an apartment with paint and brush, spatula and mortar so that it looked really comfortable there. In addition, the Munich musician rapped Keno in the video to the music of Moop Mama: “The house has to stay and the football field too. And I say: We’re not going out here and that’s how it looks.” The city absolutely wanted to demolish the green house at Müllerstrasse 6 along with the two neighboring buildings in order to build a new one. As is known, the artists around the cultural organizer Till Hofmann were allowed to renovate the houses, the social project Bellevue di Monaco has existed there since 2017. Now the activists are landing another coup: the “Bellevue educational bakery”.
“Up until thirty years ago there was a bakery in the back building at Corneliusstrasse 34. We are giving it back to the neighborhood,” says an exposé from Bellevue di Monaco, which is already the Süddeutsche Zeitung is present. In the building that, according to Bellevue di Monaco, the city bought ten years ago, craftsmen and a bakery were once located in the rear building. The rooms have apparently been empty for years, while people live in the front building. According to the vision of Hofmann and the board of directors of the social cooperative of Bellevue di Monaco, the commercial premises are to be refurbished and an urgently needed training and advice center, especially for refugees, is to be created.
There are jobs for a master baker and four trainees
The people in the rented apartments should of course still be able to stay. The bakery will be the core of the project. A large bakery could be built again in the old premises – a workplace for around four trainees next to the master baker. The bakery with a café on a roof in the backyard is primarily intended to attract neighbors from the Gärtnerplatzviertel, and people in the area and the Bellevue can also be supplied with fresh goods by cargo bike.
In the advice and mediation center in the building on Corneliusstrasse, which is supposed to make up most of the rear building next to the bakery, young people want to be advised and mediated in a targeted manner. As a cooperation partner, Bellevue die Monaco plans, among other things, the network for labor market integration Fiba 2 and the integration advice center (IBZ) at the municipal office for housing and migration. “The popularity of Bellevue among refugees can be used to reach them and to convey them in qualifying offers”, write the Bellevue board member Till Hofmann and his two deputies Angela Bauer and Stephan Dünnwald.
The premises on Corneliusstrasse are in need of major renovation.
(Photo: Bellevue di Monaco)
The Bellevue is also professionally accompanied by architects, the Munich office Zwingel / Dilg, which has a lot of experience with the conversion and renovation of existing buildings. Among other things, the architects are responsible for the “Funk” residential project at Domagkpark and the “Rioriem”, which, according to their own statements, is currently the largest wooden housing project in Munich. “The vacant rooms in the rear building are to be used again and complement the offer of the Bellevue di Monaco to support refugees with training and workplaces,” says the architects’ statement. The basement and ground floor of the rear building would have to be “thoroughly renovated”. The entire house should also be brought up to modern energy standards, and the heat generated in the bakery should be integrated into the heating circuit.
“Somehow we had a Bellevue apprenticeship bakery in mind right from the start,” says Till Hofmann. “I am very pleased that there is now an opportunity in the district and that we can save a piece of old Munich with the revitalization, create jobs and tackle it together with the city.” A gorilla action to save the house is apparently not necessary. Because with the Greens in the city council, the concept meets with great approval, even Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) should welcome the plans, according to Hofmann.
The existing tenancy agreements should not be changed
Now the Green / Pink List parliamentary group wants to put together an application package together with the SPD / Volt at the beginning of January, so that the idea can take concrete form as soon as possible. It is not very easy to bring the house to its new purpose. Because the building on Corneliusstrasse is now no longer bound after the city exercised its right of first refusal ten years ago. According to Bellevue di Monaco, the building, which is located in the preservation statute area, should be leased by the city on a long-term lease, so the existing leases should not be changed.
If everything goes according to plan, a second civic social project would be built next to the Bellevue di Monaco on Müllerstrasse in the immediate vicinity. The Bellevue, with its housing project for refugees, the info café and numerous educational and cultural offers, has been a well-respected facility for integration in the middle of Munich since it opened in 2017.