In times of city branding and increasing competition between cities on a global level for both business and tourism, urban cultures, symbolic meanings and histories become more and more important and get exploited (Zukin 1995). The ‘right’ history is expected to give cities a competitive advantage. Cities become more and more aware of the stories they want to ‘tell’ through their buildings, their memorials and their spaces (see here). City identities are formed and brought forward by diverse actors ranging from the government to citizens, to NGO’s; the latter two might bring forward alternative identities and symbols opposing and challenge those of the government (see the discussion on the ‘MediaSpree‘ project in Berlin and its opposition ‘MediaSpree versenken‘). Some identities are dominant, Vienna for instance is very eager to promote its status as capital for classical music, ‘beaux-arts’ and turn-of-the-century imperial romanticism, leading to absurd discussions on the design of lamp poles in the historic city center (modern vs. 19th-century style, the latter have been erected in the end). Buildings are often the focal point of identification and symbolism of cities (Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower etc.): ‘Every building represents a social artefact of specific impulse, energy, and commitment. That is its meaning, and this meaning resides in its physical form’ (Spiro Kostof). Accordingly, buildings tell a story, are full with history and meaning, or shortly: they are symbols for certain times, ideologies, lines of thoughts and lifestyles: the construction of buildings, space, memorials is the inscription of ideology in space resulting in a particular design of the urban space (Castillo). In the pursuit for a good city branding, histories of cities are manipulated and twisted to tell a commonly accepted, positive story, almost like an Amsterdam museum, a Dubai fairytale, or a Disneyland (see Fainstein 2007, Roost 2000).
Reconstructed Stadtschloss – Rendering (Die Morgenpost, online)
So, what has all this to do with Berlin, you may wonder?
Berlin is currently reconstructing the ‘Stadtschloss’ on Museumsinsel, right across the Dom, the famous museums and other buildings dating back to the 19th century, and it is to become home of the new ‘Humboldtforum‘, a center for education, research and culture with a global focus. The Stadtschloss in Berlin has historically been the palace of the Prussian rulers, dating back to 1442 and later became the residence of the the Prussian emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II. The palace was the site where the revolution of 1848 in Prussia started. Later, in the wake of WW1, Kaiser Wilhelm II held speeches from the balcony to prepare people for war.
Stadtschloss Berlin, ca 1920 (Wikimedia Commons)
In WW2, the palace suffered from severe damage and was partly destroyed. Now part of the ‘Deutsche Demokratische Republik’ (‘German Democratic Republic’, GDR), the palace was blasted, officially due to the heavy damage, not without conserving one intact portal of the palace. At the same time, the GDR- regime removed a symbol for the German Kaiserreich and its bourgeois society and replaced it with its very own symbol, the modernist ‘Palast der Republik’ (Palace of the Republik, see here). Interestingly, the conserved portal was included into the new design. Even though there were voices calling for the reconstruction, the GDR leaders were opposing such plans, and the palace was replaced by a new one, supposed to become the flagship of the GDR. The new building served as the governmental residence of the ‘Zentralkommittee’, as the headquarters of the ‘Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands’ (SED, Socialist Unity Party of Germany) and as a conference and event venue for the GDR.
Palast der Republik (Der Spiegel, online)
After the collapse of the GDR in 1990, the palace became vacant again, and after the discovery of large amounts of carcinogenic asbestos in the building and the general bad shape, it was decided to deconstruct the “Palast der Republik’. Thanks to its reputation as a symbol of the repressive regime of the GDR, the building was considered ugly and a blot in Berlin’s landscape. Already during the deconstruction, plans were developed to reconstruct the Stadtschloss, not completely, but only the façade with a modern contemporary interior building structure. What is striking about the project are two things: first, why did the Berlin decide to reconstruct a baroque building destroyed more than 60 years ago and at the same time disposing itself of the GDR- symbol in the heart of the city, and secondly, only three out of four façades facing the streets are reconstructed (the ones visible from the popular tourist street ‘Unter den Linden’). What is the history Berlin wants to tell with this move?
It is certainly one without significant role of the GDR in its center. Yes, the ‘Palast der Republik’ was derelict and would have been in need of significant reconstruction efforts to make the building safe to use. Whereas lots of millions of Euros are spent on renovation on historic buildings such as palaces, museums etc. dating back to the 1900s or earlier, it was obviously not desirable to keep this part of the city’s history and to renovate the ‘Palast der Republik’. Yet another modernist building that was erased from German cities in the last two decades. Besides the fact that especially Germany is busy in deconstructing its modernist building stock (due to restructuring processes on the housing market especially in East German cities), it seems more generally that modernist architecture is not considered worthy of preservation compared to buildings dating back to earlier epoques (as the ‘Stadtschloss’). Modernist buildings are widely connected to failure and to social problems (see the location of the recent upsurges in Sweden or Paris). But especially the ‘Palast der Republik’ could have been kept, as a memorial and a museum dealing with the GDR- system in general and keeping it as a part of the city, of the history of Berlin which cannot be told without telling the story of the GDR. Instead, the old castle is rebuild with only three of four originally restored parts of the façade. A building that has not even physically been part of the city since 60 years and symbolizing another repressive state: the Prussian Empire.
Graffiti ‘Die DDR hat’s nie gegeben’ (‘The GDR never existed’) on remnants of the Palast der Republik after its deconstruction (Anonyme Mitte Berlin, online)
Instead of keeping the GDR palace and accepting the city’s history with all its ups and downs, the old palace is reinstalled, almost as if Berlin wants to say: the old order is reinstalled. The ugly years of the GDR are over and we can continue living the petit-bourgeois life of the time of the Prussian Empire. Berlin’s history is believed to better be told without much reference to the GDR, although in this period large parts of the city got a new design and a new face in modernist style. A city consists of people, of buildings, of stories and images, often reflected by a building, a memorial or another object in urban space, thus what does it mean to erase buildings off the landscape of cities? We do erase a part of its history, especially in cases of more iconic buildings such as the ‘Palast der Republik’.
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