When commons and public space have to be defended/expanded against capital takeovers, the politics of radical democracy maintain the task of deepening democratic relationships. A radical-democratic conception of architecture and urbanism connects with the popular agency originating with democratic social and political movements. While bringing expertise into alliances with, e.g. anti-racist or feminist politics, the planner enters into such articulations not without critically examining her or his own role as bearer of knowledge and, thus, authority.

The lecture is structured around current anti-capitalist struggles over housing and public space in Vienna; our office work on intersectionality in housing, and a publicly-commissioned non-building plan which became politically articulated in alliance with a grass-roots urban movement defending urban space from commodification.