Features

Christiania

Maja Daniels

Published on 10/08/11

© Maja Daniels

Chris­ti­ania is the West­ern world’s longest exist­ing altern­at­ive soci­ety, an autonom­ous com­munity in the centre of Copen­ha­gen, Den­mark. Ruled accord­ing to codes out­side of con­ven­tional law and order, Chris­ti­ania is a self-proclaimed ‘Free­town’, gov­erned by its own organ­iz­a­tion. Foun­ded in 1971 by a group of hip­pies, its inhab­it­ants of around 900 people are cur­rently facing an exist­en­tial and prop­erty rights crisis. The social exper­i­ments age­ing pop­u­la­tion of 1960s coun­ter­cul­tur­al­ists are fight­ing a less tol­er­ant gov­ern­ment as well as an intens­i­fied com­mer­cial prop­erty interest of the area, situ­ated right in the middle of Copenhagen’s most attract­ive neigh­bour­hoods. Free­dom goes hand in hand with own­er­ship in the West­ern world. The domestic sphere is often seen as the ulti­mate resort of pri­vacy. Within the bound­ar­ies of “home” we have the right to express our free­dom and indi­vidu­al­ity in any way we want since we have bought ourselves the right to do so.

© Maja Daniels

What dif­fer­en­ti­ates The Free­town from the rest of the West­ern soci­ety today is mainly the “Chris­ti­an­ite” atti­tude towards own­er­ship of hous­ing, a sys­tem that they oppose in order to “con­test the cap­it­al­ist strangle­hold of indi­vidu­al­ity and iden­tity”. As a res­ult, its altern­at­ive exist­ence causes trouble for pub­lic insti­tu­tions such as law, order and func­tion, which depend on a homo­gen­eous organ­iz­a­tion of soci­ety and its inhab­it­ants. The Dan­ish East­ern High Court decided in May 2009 that the gov­ern­ment was within its powers to re-assert con­trol over the area. The res­id­ents, how­ever, believe that the state’s (until now) accept­ance of their occu­pa­tion has given them de facto rights to the neigh­bour­hood. They have appealed the case to the Supreme Court for a final decision. Des­pite the con­stant threat of clos­ure and nor­mal­iz­a­tion, the com­munity con­tin­ues to invest in the future. The ini­tial hip­pie com­mune have been rein­forced by a hard work­ing mixed pop­u­la­tion of “altern­at­iv­ists” who are busy devel­op­ing local busi­nesses and giv­ing hordes of tour­ists guided tours. The Free­town attracts around one mil­lion vis­it­ing tour­ists every year since Chris­ti­ania has become a per­tin­ent and rare example of an altern­at­ive domestic organ­isa­tion. This series aspires to be a con­tem­por­ary reflec­tion on the inter­act­ive Com­munity of Chris­ti­ania, focus­ing on its new gen­er­a­tion, its neigh­bours, vis­it­ors and eco­lo­gical modernisation.

 

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