"In Naples, clotheslines are strung up between the houses, and it’s along these clotheslines that news travels back and forth and spreads. Just imagine for a moment what it would be like if the good Lord wanted to lift a house from Naples up to heaven; to his great astonishment, he would notice that, slowly but surely, one by one, all the other houses would follow the first, as if flying at the top of their masts, along with all the clotheslines and items of laundry.”

– Luciane de Crescenzo, Thus Spake Bellavista

This series of editorial illustrations was created for taz and accompanies an article about neighbourhood, public space, and the question of what makes living together work. The article explores how neighbourhoods have changed and asks whether conflict might not only be a sign of failure, but also a natural part of a functioning community.

Inspired by the typical apartment blocks of Berlin Kreuzberg, the first illustration exaggerates the tensions between neighbours and their ideas of how a neighbourhood should work. The building itself becomes almost insignificant beneath the residents’ competing expectations.

The second illustration imagines Berlin as an ever-growing megacity. Instead of focusing only on urban isolation, it explores how people might still find ways to connect. The clotheslines between the skyscrapers become a symbol of invisible relationships, carrying not only laundry but also stories and conversations.

The remaining illustrations focus on smaller moments of neighbourhood life. A children’s carousel becomes a meeting place for neighbours, while another image shows a conflict over a planted garden, where an elderly woman drives away with a stolen lemon tree on her walker.

The illustrations do not present neighbourhood as perfect or harmonious, but as something messy, contradictory, and constantly negotiated. A place where arguments, encounters, and unexpected connections exist side by side.

This series of editorial illustrations was created for taz and accompanies an article about neighbourhood, public space, and the question of what makes living together work. The article explores how neighbourhoods have changed and asks whether conflict might not only be a sign of failure, but also a natural part of a functioning community.

Inspired by the typical apartment blocks of Berlin Kreuzberg, the first illustration exaggerates the tensions between neighbours and their ideas of how a neighbourhood should work. The building itself becomes almost insignificant beneath the residents’ competing expectations.

The second illustration imagines Berlin as an ever-growing megacity. Instead of focusing only on urban isolation, it explores how people might still find ways to connect. The clotheslines between the skyscrapers become a symbol of invisible relationships, carrying not only laundry but also stories and conversations.

The remaining illustrations focus on smaller moments of neighbourhood life. A children’s carousel becomes a meeting place for neighbours, while another image shows a conflict over a planted garden, where an elderly woman drives away with a stolen lemon tree on her walker.

The illustrations do not present neighbourhood as perfect or harmonious, but as something messy, contradictory, and constantly negotiated. A place where arguments, encounters, and unexpected connections exist side by side.

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