Introduction

Introduction East German urban design East German urban design—the term may seem paradoxical for many in the architectural world. The endless estates of bleak, standardized apartment blocks were apparently produced without any designer or architect. And this was all they built in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Or was it? More than fifteen years after Germany was reunified in 1990, architecture in East Germany is still largely seen as a footnote to modular housing. The numerous neo-historical projects in the late phase of the GDR that do not fit this stereotype are largely ignored as inconsistent exceptions. The new interest in “traditional” urban design cannot only be read from the most spectacular projects such as the garish Nikolaiviertel, Berlin’s invented old town, or the reconstructed baroque buildings on the Platz der Akademie square, which now again bears its old name, Gendarmenmarkt. In all central areas of East Berlin one finds prefab blocks from the 1980s that show similarities to the adjacent late-nineteenth-century tenements and to other historical styles. They were erected on the block perimeter from precast concrete parts and adorned with loggias, gables, bay windows, tile ornaments, and mosaics. Neo-historical relics such as ornamented street signs, cast-iron lampposts, period gift shops, newly built “Old Berlin restaurants,” and a number of partially remodeled late-nineteenth-century neighborhoods bear witness to a new popularity of the old city in the last decades of the German Democratic Republic. How can this change be explained? Why has the East German regime, which for decades thought modernist architecture to be the only appropriate expression of a socialist system, all of a sudden represented itself with rebuilt gothic and baroque churches, remodeled nineteenth-century residences, and newly erected pseudo-historical department stores? Why did East Berlin architects design arbors and ornamented façades in the center, while at the same time the large tower block developments on the periphery were still under construction? It is the objective of this book to add the forgotten final chapter to the history of East German urban design. This book looks at the gradual change in urban design from functional modernism to neo-traditional projects. This 2 neo-historical east berlin transformation took place against the background of an international cultural development. The new “historic city” in East Berlin responded to a global socio-economic change within the narrow framework of the socialist regime. A focal point of this development was the “Capital of the German Democratic Republic.” East Berlin was not only a capital, a divided half, and a showcase of the Eastern bloc, but at the same time a place where prevalent social and cultural phenomena manifested in a condensed form. The conditions of modernity and its expression in architecture and urban design were similar in numerous industrialized countries of both the Eastern and Western blocs; its modifications over the course of the 1970s and 1980s therefore have to be regarded as driven by mutual influences. Looking at East Berlin therefore means taking a slice from a compound of reciprocities that reached far beyond the boundaries of the city. During that time, many of East Berlin’s construction projects were surprisingly similar to those in the West. Even though the German Democratic Republic lacked the political players that profited from the transformation in capitalist cities—private businesses and the real estate industry—the new historic East Berlin echoed many aspects of the revitalized city centers in the West. Parallels can be found not only to the showcase buildings of the International Building Exhibit (IBA) in West Berlin, but similarly to the numerous inner cities in Western Europe and North America that were renovated for well-to-do residents and tourists and outfitted with the insignia of a real or invented past. In the GDR the spirit of the Venice Charter was also palpable, which in 1964 marked the break with the modernist models, the beginning of contextual urbanism, and the shift toward new preservationist concepts. Cities were now thought of as ensembles, and at least in theory it was no longer the individual old building that was to be preserved, but rather the entire urban fabric. It was not only the West that influenced the East. The remodeling of the late-nineteenth-century neighborhood around the Arnimplatz in East Berlin, for example, provided a model for the large-scale modernizations in West Berlin, and the neo-historical buildings on Platz der Akademie/Gendarmenmarkt pre-dated the numerous reconstructions of historical neighborhoods in the West. Similarly, the “historic city” as it was planned under the socialist regime during the 1970s and 1980s anticipated the transformation of East Berlin neighborhoods after the German reunification. This is even more surprising since post-reunification policy in the Eastern half of Berlin lay almost exclusively in the hands of West Germans. However, there are significant similarities, on the one hand with regard to the policy of “critical reconstruction,” on the other hand with regard to a new fascination with micro-histories and historical remainders in the urban fabric. Despite profound political and social breaks the German reunification was hardly a “zero hour.” Contrary to what many critics claim there was a significant degree of continuity that extended beyond the end of the socialist era. The first chapter of this book will set the neo-historical projects in the context of East German architectural policy in the postwar decades and provide an overview over the most important scholarly treatments of the subject. introduction 3 Chapter 2 sheds light on the idea of an “obsolete neighborhood.” Widely popular during the 1960s, the concept was connected to the biological analogy of an “urban life cycle,” after the completion of which any neighborhood inevitably had to be torn down and built anew. Consequently, the entire city was scheduled for periodical demolition. These plans were first suspended in the early 1970s, when the tenements in the Arnimplatz neighborhood were remodeled and the “life cycle” prolonged. For decades, the demolition of this area continued to be planned, but was eventually deferred indefinitely. Chapter 3 traces the contradictory history of urban design in the Spandauer Vorstadt in Berlin’s Mitte district, which after the German reunification became an “arty” neighborhood with swanky bars, high-class boutiques, and rising real estate prices. For more than 30 years, the area remained the subject of “reconstruction” plans—only that until the 1970s, the term “reconstruction” was used synonymous with comprehensive demolition, while later it implied a more or less historically accurate remodeling completed with new construction in a historical style. In the Spandauer Vorstadt, the socialist leaders attempted to convey an idea of Old Berlin through the reconstruction of historic façades, shops, and restaurants. The fourth chapter gives an account of Berlin’s rebuilt medieval nucleus, the Nikolaiviertel. The area, which had been comprehensively destroyed in the Second World War, was rebuilt as a shopping and entertainment space for locals and tourists and is highly popular to date. From the first rebuilding plans in the mid-1970s to the final construction in a neo-historical style during the 1980s, the project underwent substantial changes. A bizarre gesamtkunstwerk assembled from prefabricated parts, the Nikolaiviertel exemplifies the eclectic nature of the historic city in East Germany that promotes an unspecific image of the past. Chapter 5 looks at the Prenzlauer Berg district, which in the 1980s witnessed a conceptual struggle over the nature of the urban. On the one hand, artists and dissidents appropriated the numerous late-nineteenth-century tenements in the area as a place for alternative lifestyles within the socialist state. On the other hand, the state authorities attempted to inscribe their interpretation of history into the local urban fabric, decorating selected late-nineteenth-century blocks with period accessories such as gas lamps, placard columns, and hand- painted shop signs to provide an “authentic” historic atmosphere. Despite their apparent political antagonism, both groups shared numerous communalities. Their approaches were both rooted in an intellectual development, which over the course of the preceding decade had changed the academic disciplines of both sociology and architectural theory and directed attention towards individual social practice. The sixth chapter presents the re-development of the central boulevard Friedrichstraße into a classy shopping and entertainment district. The project remained unfinished by the German reunification and was subsequently torn down and redesigned by international architects. Making use of both renovation and new construction in a historic style, Friedrichstraße was 4 neo-historical east berlin designed to involve the visitor through unique, subjective experience (Erlebnis). In this new development, urbanity became a matter of individual consumption rather than collective action. Unlike most other neo-historical developments that were completed by the late 1980s and since then have undergone only small changes, Friedrichstraße largely stayed under construction until 1990. The government of the reunified city has since abandoned the socialist plans, demolished the unfinished buildings, and commissioned

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