Hall 23, a former municipal drainage building at Dachauer Strasse 110c on the Creative Quarter site, is finally rented. Shortly before New Year’s Eve, Experimental Exchange GmbH signed the lease, and a few days later the first users of the newly founded “Center for Interdisciplinary Spatial and Cultural Work”, or “Zirka” for short, moved into the premises near Leonrodplatz. As of now, there are three artists’ studios in the hall, two music labels – Squama Records and Alternativefacts – as well as a workshop of the Naiv Studios group, which specializes in stage construction and interior design.
Later, says Tobias Tzschaschel, Managing Director of Experimental Exchange, the rooms will also be made accessible to the public for cultural offerings in the fields of fine arts, music, theatre, performance and dance. “But that will take a few months due to various requirements.”
Specializing in stage construction: The Naiv Studios are also moving in.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Educational opportunities for young people in the form of workshops are also being discussed. “That’s extremely important to us,” emphasizes the 36-year-old culture manager. He is certain that, together with his team, he will be able to “set exciting impulses in the socio-cultural direction”. Ideally supported by funding partners. The question of a possible socio-cultural use of Hall 23 was one that was repeatedly debated in the past few months, not only in the districts, but also in the city council.
Because in Neuhausen-Nymphenburg and Schwabing-West, but also throughout the city, there is a massive lack of creative spaces for young people. Local politicians and representatives of the social and educational scene, above all the founder of the art and professional qualification project International Munich Art Lab (Imal), Ulrich Gläß, would ideally have created a consumption-free, non-commercial, inclusive space for free development by using the hall as an example 23 found. But that failed because of the rental costs.
The city drainage was once housed in the 3800 square meter hall at Dachauer Straße 110c. What the new tenants pay is not known.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
The crux of the matter is the construct: The former city drainage building has belonged to the Munich Commercial and Technology Center Company (MGH) since November 2019, and this municipal subsidiary, which is responsible for the entire creative laboratory, has to act economically. “MGH has the task of generating money here because we have renovation costs of 20 to 25 million euros on this site,” MGH boss Rudolf Boneberger had already explained in the summer.
After rent demands that were initially far too high and protests from the creative scene and politicians, the prices for Hall 23 were lowered in a second attempt: instead of initially 14 euros per square meter, the second application process in April only cost 8.25 euros per square meter of ground floor area as a “guide value”. But even this sum remained unaffordable for a non-profit organization like the Imal, since the municipal competence team for cultural and creative industries only wanted to allocate the 3800 square meters in full for fire protection reasons.
The child and youth welfare committee of the city council also emphasized again just a few days ago that it would not be able to meet such rental demands. In the end, even the competitors did not find out who actually applied for the hall. For “reasons of confidentiality protection,” as the spokesman for the department for labor and economics, Wolfgang Nickl, explains. And since the examination of the expressions of interest should have referred to issues such as tax and economic matters, Nickl adds that it was “not possible” to involve the district committees. Assessment criteria, the competence team recently informed in a press release, were “supplements to existing uses in the laboratory, interactions with the site and the neighboring districts as well as a reliable calculation of profitability”.
The business department is certain that the Zirka project will “represent an enrichment for the creative laboratory and the environment”. Tobias Tzschaschel does not want to reveal how much the company Experimental Exchange is actually paying for the creative quarter hall, which is to be available until the end of 2028 with an option to extend it for cultural, artistic, socio-cultural or cultural and creative economic uses. But, says the managing director, in the second round of applications “we were able to negotiate a price that is sporty and a risk, of course, but which we believe we can handle”. Also because the applicant only had to rent the space on the ground floor in the first phase: 2000 instead of 3800 square meters. The basement and parts of the upper floor are to follow in the foreseeable future.