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Putting It All Together: Spatial Symbolism, Cultural Memory, Nation-Building, and Berlin’s Urban Development After 1989

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Inventing Berlin

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the five case studies together from temporal, spatial, syntagmatic, and strategic perspectives. In so doing, it underlines the significance of the capital city decision both as the justification and the instrument for the changes examined in Chap. 5. This chapter further demonstrates how the key actors’ tactics changed over time. The second half of this chapter reflects on the architecture and urban planning of the new/old capital as a proxy and product of a new German national narrative and in relation to its consequences for belonging and identity among former East Germans and East Berliners. In so doing, it also examines the question of how Berlin is (or is not) a post-socialist city, in particular with regard to the role of German division in both sides’ coming to grips with the recent, National Socialist past (a process known in German as Vergangenheitsbewältigung).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    April 1993, the 28th meeting, is the first document in the archive: https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/stadtforum/de/archiv/1993-1995.shtml.

  2. 2.

    Born between 1941 and 1952, they would have been between 15 and 26 years old when Alexanderplatz ’ redesign was begun, see Table 4.1.

  3. 3.

    In 2014, Hans Stimmann was still lobbying for a reconstruction of the historical city center on the Marx-Engels Forum (Albers 2014; Stimmann 2014b).

  4. 4.

    Senator Volker Hassemer was of the opinion that invite-only competitions yielded the best results because “it was possible to invite only the ‘good’ architects” (Lenhart 2001, p. 201).

  5. 5.

    More information about this is presented in Chap. 7.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Berlin, Germany

    Dr. Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse

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  1. Dr. Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse
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Correspondence to Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse .

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Dellenbaugh-Losse, M. (2020). Putting It All Together: Spatial Symbolism, Cultural Memory, Nation-Building, and Berlin’s Urban Development After 1989. In: Inventing Berlin. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29718-3_6

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