Planning reunification: the planning history of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Abstract

This article looks at the history of plans for the reuse of the zone of land left vacant by the fall of the Berlin Wall. This strip and its redevelopment offer a window on the complex planning processes and issues that have been animating the city as a whole for the past fifteen years. In the main, plans developed since 1989 took a restorative approach, aimed at establishing continuity with the pre‐Wall character of sites and ground plans. More recently, however, a maverick view, which urged an ahistorical solution in the form of a greenbelt, merged with the desire to preserve the historical memory of the Wall. The result of this synthesis is a second layer of development that challenges the authority of the conventional planning process. The article sets analysis of post‐reunification planning documents within the context of post‐war planning experiences to gain insight into how planning in East and West Berlin contributed to recent developments.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the following planners and others in Berlin who were generous with their time and expertise: Wolfgang Bunge, Michael Cramer, Karin and Andreas Koven, Dr Friedemann Kunst, Thomas Lenz, Norbert Rheinlaender, Roland Sartor, Marianne and Wolfgang Schneider and Dr Franz Schulz, as well as Ms. Thielecke, Mr Richter, Ms. Pfan, Ms. Brueggmann, Ms. Fink and Ms. Gruebsch. This article also benefited from the author’s participation in the 2001 Fulbright Seminar on German urban planning, from a research leave awarded by Central Michigan University, from the comments of co‐panelists and others at the 10^th national Society for American City and Regional Planning History conference where a preliminary version was presented, and from acute readings by two anonymous reviewers. All translations and photographs are by the author unless otherwise noted.

Notes

1. Districts in which new capital‐city functions were to be developed ceded their planning authority over these to another entity as part of the 1992 Capital City Agreement. Herbert Schwenk, Berliner Stadtentwicklung von A bis Z. Berlin: Edition Luisenstadt, 1998, p. 230.

2. This is on a building facade incorporated into the side of the Gemaeldegalerie, at the edge of the former West Berlin.

3. The evisceration of the Palast der Republik has been much reported on, but it continues to exemplify both the conflicts embodied in architectural structures and shifting attitudes toward the past. A recent testament to this can be found in an interview with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas that an anonymous reviewer of this essay brought to my attention, ‘Es war ein Verbrechen, den Palast der Republik nicht zu retten’ [‘It was a crime not to save the Palace of the Republic’], Spiegel online 27 April 2004.

4. See, for example, Konrad H. Jarausch, The Rush to German Unity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), especially chapters 8 and 9, on the process of East Germany’s accession. Here, it is also worth noting, as an anonymous reviewer of this essay pointed out, that even the term ‘reunification’ is loaded, for it emphasizes the restoration of a pre‐existing status rather than the constitution of a new state. ‘Unification’ suggests the union of two equal partners and is the term used in the official agreement, the Einigungsvertrag. The term ‘reunification’ is used here in relation to Berlin, where it may seem less fraught, to reflect the dominance of the West not only in the process of political change but in other realms as well, such as planning.

5. The Basic Law of 1949 mandates the creation of equal living standards. Johannes Wieczorek, The German Planning System. Presentation to the Fulbright German Studies Seminar, Berlin, 11 June 2001.

6. Berlin: Open City, The City on Exhibition. Berlin: Nicolai Verlag, 1999. Christo and Jeanne‐Claude’s 1995 ‘Wrapped Reichstag’ is perhaps the best‐known emblem of the celebratory spirit of this time.

7. A. James McAdams, Judging the Past in Unified Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 125.

8. Ibid., p. 148.

9. Ibid., p. 155.

10. For discussions of early post‐war planning initiatives, see Francesca Rogier, The Monumentality of Rhetoric: The Will to Rebuild in Postwar Berlin, in Sarah Williams Goldhagen and Rejean Legault (eds) Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture. Montreal and Cambridge: Canadian Centre for Architecture and MIT Press, 2000, pp. 168–89; and Gerrit Confurius, Attempts at a National New Beginning, in Thorsten Scheer, Josef Paul Kleihues and Paul Kahlfeldt (eds) City of Architecture, Architecture of the City, Berlin 1900–2000. Berlin: Nicolai, 2000, pp. 215–27.

11. T.H. Elkins, Berlin: The Spatial Structure of a Divided City. London: Metheun, 1988, p. 180.

12. An exception to this was the plan in the 1980s to construct a German history museum to designs by Aldo Rossi on the site that soon became the Federal government quarter. See Peter Rumpf, Developments in Urban Design and Architecture, 1990–2000, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], p. 362.

13. Wolfgang Schaeche, The 1957/58 Competition for Berlin, Capital City: Projects Negating the Past, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], p. 252.

14. See Klaus von Beyme, Ideas for a Capital City in East and West, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], pp. 239–49. It should be added that a year earlier, a competition for housing development was organized in East Berlin that included equal representation by East and West practitioners both on the jury and among the participants; first prize went to West German architect Ernst May. See Dorothea Tscheschner, Sixteen Principles of Urban Design and the Athens Charter?, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], pp. 259–69.

15. H. Schwenk, op. cit. [1], p. 284.

16. Peter Marcuse, Privatization and Its Discontents: Property Rights in Land and Housing in the Transition in Eastern Europe, in G. Andrusz, M. Harloe and I. Szelenyi (eds) Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post‐Socialist Societies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, p. 137; Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10].

17. On historic preservation in the GDR, see Brian Ladd, Socialist Planning and the Rediscovery of the Old City in the German Democratic Republic. Journal of Urban History 27 (July 2001) 584–603; Simone Hain, Between Arkonaplatz and the Nikolaiviertel, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], pp. 337–47.

18. Bernd Hunger et al., Staedtbauprognose: Staedtbauliche Grundlagen fuer die langfristige intensive Entwicklung und Reproduktion der Staedte. Berlin: Instituts fuer Staedt‐ und Regionalplanung der Technischen Universitaet Berlin, 1990.

19. Michael Harloe, Cities in the Transition, in G. Andrusz et al., op. cit. [16], p. 14.

20. This is noted by Tscheschner, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], p. 259; and Dieter Hoffmann‐Axthelm, Locational Shift – the 1960s: City Centre Planning in East and West, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], p. 297. For the modernist tradition in East Berlin, see Andreas Butter and Ulrich Hartung, Ostmoderne: Architektur in Berlin 1945–1965. Berlin: jovis Verlag, 2004.

21. Alan Balfour, Berlin: The Politics of Order, 1737–1989. New York: Rizzoli, 1990, p. 230.

22. Pre‐war street patterns in the central city were destroyed in East Berlin also; the redevelopment of Fischerinsel in an example of this.

23. T.H. Elkins, op. cit. [11], p. 194.

24. S. Hain, op. cit. [17], p. 339, notes that this was a result of Hans Stimmann’s study of East Berlin city renewal efforts.

25. Hans Stimmann, New Berlin Office and Commercial Buildings, in Annegret Burg, Downtown Berlin: Building the Metropolitan Mix. Berlin: Birkhaeuser Verlag, 1995, p. 11.

26. Bericht Ueber die Planungen im Grenznahen Raum. Berlin: Senatsverwaltung fuer Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, 1991.

27. Ibid., p. II.

28. Gerwin Zohlen, Stadt‐Gedaechtnis: Erinnerung an die Berliner Mauer. Foyer 4 (1994) 52.

29. Stadtforum: Stadtidee Berlin. Berlin: Senatsverwaltung fuer Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, 1992.

30. Senatsverwaltung fuer Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, Projekte der Raeumlichen Planung. Berlin: D & D Verlag, 1993, p. 16.

31. Senatsverwaltung fuer Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, Projekte der Raeumlichen Planung: Fortschreibung, Berlin: D & D Verlag, 1995.

32. Friedrich Bluth, Manfred Zache and Helmut Zempel, Stadtplanerische Dokumentation zum ehemaligen Grenzstreifen der Mauer in Berlin. Hohen Neuendorf: Z‐Plan, 2000.

33. At the federal level, there is a comparable effort to establish a nature preserve along the entire 1400 km length of the former border between East and West Germany. Called Das Gruene Band (the Green Ribbon), this is a project of the Bund fuer Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland in co‐ordination with many regional organizations.

34. Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Berlin Tomorrow. London: Academy Group, 1991, p. 31.

35. A dual‐language volume that reflects these sensibilities is Polly Feversham and Leo Schmidt, Die Berliner Mauer heute/The Berlin Wall Today. Berlin: Verlag Bauwesen, 1999.

36. Michael Cramer, Berliner Mauer‐Radweg: Eine Reise durch die Geschichte Berlins. Rodingersdorf: Verlag Esterbauer, 2001.

37. Berliner Mauerstreifzuege. Berlin: Fraktion Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen, 2001.

38. In some central‐city areas there is a double row of cobblestones along the pavement, implanted at intervals with bronze plaques that read ‘Berlin Mauer 1961–1989’. This follows the line of the exterior, West‐facing Wall, indicating the district border but not giving a sense of the Wall zone in its entirety.

39. Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, op. cit. [34], p. 45. The Planwerk Innenstadt (central city planning document) that was proposed in 1996 and ratified in 1999 embodies the revival of Berlin’s traditional ground‐plan and block structure. It was produced by Western planners; see Gert Kaehler, ‘As the Steam Began to Rise …’, in Thorsten Scheer et al., op. cit. [10], p. 387.

40. Im Spannungsfeld von ‘gewollten’ und ‘gewordenen’ historischen Zeitzeugnissen muss die Berliner Mauer zur Erinnerung an die Spaltung der Stadt und deren Wiedervereinigung eindeutig als ein gewordenes Denkmal bezeichnet werden. Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin, Drucksache 14/1592, 11 October 2001.

41. Dieter Hoffmann‐Axthelm, quoted in Eva Gerlach, Birgit Kahl, and Gabriele Schmitz, Berlin am Mauerstreifen: Ein besonderer Ort in der Stadt zwischen Umgestaltung und Erinnerung. Diplomarbeit in Studiengang Stadt‐ und Regionalplanung, Technischen Universitaet Berlin, May 1999, p. 7.

42. For an early walking guide, see Jodock, Die Mauer entlang: Auf den Spuren der verschwundenen Grenze. Berlin: Argon Verlag, 1996. Among the numerous photographic essays, see, for example, Thomas Friedrich and Harry Hampel, Wo die Mauer war/Where was the Wall?. Berlin: Nikolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann, 1996. The most recent addition to this literature is Axel Klausmeier and Leo Schmidt, Mauerreste – Mauerspuren. Berlin: Westkreuz Verlag, 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carolyn Loeb

* Carolyn Loeb is associate professor of art and architectural history at Central Michigan University. She is the author of Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers’ Subdivisions in the 1920s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). Her current research focuses on redevelopment in Berlin and on the construction of civic space.