Seeing Yona Friedman’s tight, unpretentious exhibition Berlin is like scoring a perfect set of Cliffs Notes, a cheat sheet, to the oeuvre of a visionary thinker, avant-garde theorist, offbeat urban planner, and reluctant utopian. The exhibition’s title “Handbuch” means “handbook,” and that’s exactly what this is: a how-to compendium of Friedman’s ideas and musings running through several decades and an overview of his mandate for people to think and act for and by themselves in civic situations and life in general. Friedman was born in Hungary in the late 1920s, fled to Israel to escape the Nazis, and relocated to Paris in the late 1950s. His oeuvre dates (mind-bogglingly) to that time—his seminal manifesto “L’Architecture Mobile” and the concept of La Ville Spatiale (Spatial City) were, after all, both published in 1958, proclaiming that architecture and city structures are merely a framework for human creativity and living. Friedman’s prescient concepts have inspired urban planners, architects, and artists ever since—Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, for instance, immediately comes to mind. At Chert, visitors immediately encounter Friedman’s manuals (ah, handbooks) on display on the gallery’s front table. Using storyboard-like cartoons with pithy captions, the three thick volumes cover overreaching topics like urbanism, dwelling, and “thought,” …