The Bank of Ideas was a squatted, self-managed social centre in a disused UBS office complex on Sun Street in the City of London, England. It remained in the building from November 2011 until January 2012. [1] The building was owned by UBS, and the squatters were members of the Occupy London protest movement. The building was described by an Occupy London spokesman as "a space for political discussion". [2]
The Bank of Ideas' website stated that its purpose was to host "the non-monetary trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time" [3] and referred to itself as a "public repossession". The idea of "repossessing" bank property, according to one member of the movement, was in response to bank takeovers of households behind on their mortgage payments. [2] Drugs and alcohol were forbidden at the Bank of Ideas, as was all commercial activity. [3] The centre continued to engage in organized meetings, events, and actions until about March 2012. [4]
The building on Sun Street was occupied by protesters from November 2011. [1] It hosted teach-ins and seminars on various social, economic and political issues. [5] Other events included a mock trial of the United Kingdom government for alleged war crimes conducted during the War in Afghanistan, [6] a screening of the BAFTA-winning film How to Start a Revolution and a free performance by the bands Radiohead and Massive Attack. [7] [8]
All seminars and events at the Bank of Ideas were suspended indefinitely after a court approved UBS's request for the organization's eviction on 26 January 2012. [5] The centre was evicted from the site on 30 January 2012. While most people left peacefully, clashes between law enforcement and remaining squatters led to the arrest of one man on suspicion of criminal damage and assault. [1]
Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there were one billion slum residents and squatters globally. Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur when people who are poor and homeless find empty buildings or land to occupy for housing. It has a long history, broken down by country below.
Robert Del Naja, also known as 3D, is a British artist, musician, singer and songwriter. His mother is English and his father, Italian. They moved to Bristol, St Andrews in 1966. Robert del Naja emerged as a graffiti artist and member of the Bristol collective the Wild Bunch, and later as a founding member and sole consistent member of the band Massive Attack, with which he is still active. In 2009, he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
St Agnes Place was a squatted street in Kennington, south London, which resisted eviction orders for more than 30 years. When a number of derelict houses were scheduled for demolition to extend Kennington Park in 1969, squatters occupied the properties and a High Court injunction prevented the demolition. The street was run by a housing cooperative until 2005, when Lambeth London Borough Council obtained an eviction order. Demolition was completed in 2007.
rampART was a squatted social centre in the Whitechapel area of east London. It was established in a derelict building in Rampart Street which was previously used as an Islamic school for girls. The centre operated as a private members club providing a space for a wide range of groups to carry out their activities. It was managed by volunteers without any funding and with a strong emphasis on consensus decision making and DIY culture.
Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom can be found in squatted, rented, mortgaged and fully owned buildings. These self-managed social centres differ from community centres in that they are self-organised under anti-authoritarian principles and volunteer-run, without any assistance from the state. The largest number have occurred in London from the 1980s onwards, although projects exist in most cities across the UK, linked in a network. Squatted social centres tend to be quickly evicted and therefore some projects deliberately choose a short-term existence, such as A-Spire in Leeds or the Okasional Café in Manchester. Longer term social centres include the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, the Cowley Club in Brighton and the Sumac Centre in Nottingham, which are co-operatively owned.
In England and Wales, squatting—taking possession of land or an empty house the squatter does not own—occurs for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, poverty, and recreation. Many squats are residential; some are also opened as social centres. Land may be occupied by New Age travellers or treesitters.
Occupy London was a political movement in London, England, and part of the international Occupy movement. While some media described it as an "anti-capitalist" movement, in the statement written and endorsed by consensus by the Occupy assembly in the first two days of the occupation, occupiers defined themselves as a movement working to create alternatives to an "unjust and undemocratic" system. A second statement endorsed the following day called for "real global democracy". Due to a pre-emptive injunction, the protesters were prevented from their original aim to camp outside the London Stock Exchange. A camp was set up nearby next to St Paul's Cathedral. On 18 January 2012, Mr Justice Lindblom granted an injunction against continuation of the protest but the protesters remained in place pending an appeal. The appeal was refused on 22 February, and just past midnight on 28 February, bailiffs supported by City of London Police began to remove the tents.
Occupy Bath was a protest group against economic inequality that began initially with an encampment on 30 October 2011 in Queen Square, Bath, England. The camp was dismantled on 10 December 2011. Occupy Bath described themselves as being "not all anti-capitalist" but rather "pro-economic fairness and pro-direct democracy". The camp held daily meetings, described by the group as general assemblies, which were open to the general public
Bloomsbury Social Centre was the name given to a building in Bloomsbury, London, which was squatted as a self-managed social centre by students in affiliation with Occupy London, and the global Occupy movement. It was occupied on Wednesday, 23 November 2011, and evicted on Thursday, 22 December, lasting a total of 30 days. It was situated at 53 Gordon Square, in an historic six-storey Georgian Grade II-listed building, renovated by famous British architect, Charles Holden, the principal architect of nearby Senate House.
Squat Milada is a First Republic villa located in the Libeň district of Prague. Milada was intended to be demolished in the 1980s and thus deleted from the cadastre, becoming a house which officially did not exist. It became one of the Czech Republic's best known squats, occupied from 1997 until 2009. It was then reoccupied for a day in 2012. Acting as a self-managed social centre and infoshop hosting concerts and events, Milada was also home to a number of people. Despite various plans for the site, as of 2019, the building was standing derelict.
The Vondelstraat riots were violent disturbances on Vondelstraat in Amsterdam, the Netherlands between squatters and the state in March 1980. It also involved the deployment of military tanks on the streets for the first time since World War II, and was one of the most serious disturbances involving squatters in the country.
121 Centre was a squatted self-managed social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London from 1981 until 1999. As an anarchist social centre, the venue hosted a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting space, office space, printing facility, and rehearsal space. Organisations using the space included Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group. Regular events at 121 Centre included punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night. The centre kept a low profile and was one of the longest-lasting squats in London.
Focus E15 is a campaign group formed in London in 2013 by a group of mothers threatened with eviction from their emergency accommodation in a hostel for young homeless people in Newham. The group squatted empty flats on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in September 2014, drawing widespread attention in the mainstream media. Most of the young women were eventually rehoused within the borough, as they had requested. Having won their own battle, they have continued to protest both against the local housing policy of Newham Council and for housing rights more generally. They have done so by occupying various buildings and supporting different individual struggles.
The Really Free School was a collective squatting a series of buildings in central London in 2011 to use as free schools. They organised lectures and workshops, stating "in this space, aside from the fact that you will not spend one penny inside these doors, you can also come and engage in a collective learning process directed by your own desires, ideas, questions and problems."
Squatting in Australia usually refers to a person who is not the owner, taking possession of land or an empty house. In 19th century Australian history, a squatter was a settler who occupied a large tract of Aboriginal land in order to graze livestock. At first this was done illegally, later under licence from the Crown.
Squatting in the Republic of Ireland is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. In the 1960s, the Dublin Housing Action Committee highlighted the housing crisis by squatting buildings. From the 1990s onwards there have been occasional political squats in Cork and Dublin such as Grangegorman, the Barricade Inn, the Bolt Hostel, Connolly Barracks, That Social Centre and James Connolly House.
Oval Mansions are eight separate blocks of tenement housing in Kennington, south London. The blocks stand between the Oval cricket ground and the Oval Gasholders. After being occupied by one hundred squatters from 1983 until 2000, the buildings were sold off by Lambeth Council in the early 2000s.
Squatting in Spain refers to the occupation of unused or derelict buildings or land without the permission of the owner. In Francoist Spain migrant workers lived in slums on the periphery of cities. During the Spanish transition to democracy, residential squatting occurred in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Valencia and Zaragoza. From the 1980s onwards a new generation of squatters set up self-managed social centres which hosted events and campaigns. The 1995 Criminal Code among other things criminalised squatting, but failed to stop it. Social centres exist across the country and in Barcelona and Madrid in particular. In the Basque Country they are known as gaztetxes.
Squatting in Albania began on a large scale in the 1990s after the fall of communism, with internal migration towards formerly collectivised farmland establishing informal settlements. One such area, Bathore on the periphery of the capital Tirana, had 40,000 squatters by the early 2000s who successfully campaigned for better amenities. Other squatters occupied severely polluted post-industrial sites. The Agency of Legalization, Upgrading, and Integration of Informal Zones and Buildings (ALUIZNI) had legalized 16,500 homes on 152 settlements by 2009. As of 2020, 25 per cent of the population of Albania's cities lived in informal settlements.
House of Brag was a queer collective which organised four self-managed social centres in London between 2012 and 2014.
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