Counterpreservation

Front matter

Architectural Decay in Berlin since 1989

Daniela Sandler signale modern german letters, cultures, and thought

Series editor: Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Cornell University

Contents

List of Illustrations Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction 1. Counterpreservation as a Concept

Index

132 169 197 231

Na a a SOMNAUNAWHN

ILLUSTRATIONS

. Haus Schwarzenberg, street facade, 2004

. Prenzlauer Berg graffito, 2004

. KA 86 and Tuntenhaus, street facade, 2003

. KA 86 and Tuntenhaus, chandelier, 2010

. KA 86 and Tuntenhaus, message, 2007

. Kgpi, view of façade, 2009

. Kgpi, exterior, detail, 2010

. Kgpi, interior, stairwell, 2009

. Haus Schwarzenberg, first courtyard, 2009

. Udo Hesse, Zionskirchstraße, East-Berlin, 1981

. Haus Schwarzenberg, first courtyard, detail, 2004

. Otto Weidt Museum, exhibition room interior, 2004

. Silent Heroes Memorial, exhibition room interior, 2010

. Schokoladen, street facade, 2010

. Daniel Libeskind, Project Mo&rning, model overview

. Daniel Libeskind, Project Mo&rning, model detail

. Police Academy of Brandenburg, Oranienburg, entrance gate, 2010 . Police Academy of Brandenburg, Oranienburg, plaque, 2010 . Topography of Terror, exterior, general view, 2010

. Topography of Terror, exterior, detail, 2010

21. Topography of Terror, interior courtyard, 2010

22. Palace of the Republic, exterior view, 2005

23. Palace of the Republic, interior, main entrance stairs, 2003 24. Palace of the Republic, interior, main assembly hall, 2004 25. Der Berg, installation in the Palace of the Republic, 2005 26. Berlin Wall Memorial Grounds, site plan

27. Berlin Wall Memorial Grounds, path of the Wall, 2010 28. Wall section on Bernauer Straße, 2009

Preface

I was not looking for decay when I began this book. I arrived in Berlin in 2003 for a year of fieldwork, planning to study how preservation policies and practices embodied the ideological turmoils of German identity after unification. I lived in a tiny but smartly refurbished attic apartment in an Altbau (old building) in the unfashionable border between the western districts of Schöneberg and Wilmersdorf. The building was pristinely kept, its white façade graced by fluted columns and ample balconies, at the dead end of placid little Tharandter Straße.

Early on, I made a friend. She was a young student at the Freie Universität who helped me practice my German. She came to visit me and remarked upon what I thought was an unremarkable (if pretty) building: “But this doesn’t look like Berlin!” The hallways, she meant, and the rug on the inner stairwell, and the façade and all the common spaces, and even the brass mailboxes . . . “It is all too. . . nice.” It did not sound like a compliment.

I was intrigued. What was “too nice” about it, and why was that bad? In fact, although they were well kept, I did not find the building’s spaces particularly striking; the dark wooden railings and floorboards even looked a bit dull to me. My friend explained that all of the people she knew in Berlin, including herself, lived in buildings whose common spaces, interiors, and exteriors were in much more precarious conditions.

xii Preface

I soon visited her apartment in fashionable Friedrichshain, which was then a very happening area, and saw for myself: the grimy façade, the worn-out steps, the state of decay and neglect of all the common spaces. I was surprised, though, to find that the apartment she shared with several roommates was perfectly wellappointed and maintained. Over the course of the next ten months this experience would be repeated. All my friends lived in similar buildings, slightly decrepit on the outside, where the stairwells and courtyards and halls looked abandoned; all in trendy areas: Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain; but inside, their apartments looked just as “nice” as mine.

I found this very curious. I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, where severe social inequalities are manifest quite visibly in the urban landscape through shantytowns, slums, homeless encampments. Dilapidation, grime, dirt, and neglect were all ingrained in my urban subconscious as signs of poverty and destitution, of an utter lack of alternatives. I had never heard of anyone voluntarily choosing to live in a decrepit building—much less people like my new acquaintances, who were students, artists, architects, and who appeared to have the means either to live somewhere else or to fix their abodes. The juxtaposition of crumbling facades with well-groomed apartments made everything all the more perplexing.

I continued to be intrigued by this—my own choice to live in a well-maintained building in a sleepy bourgeois neighborhood also a badge of my cultural biases and background. In my off time, I began to pursue examples of this voluntary embrace of decay. Eventually this personal curiosity found its way into my field research, as case studies; and then into my writing, initially as a single chapter on what I had begun to call counterpreservation. Then one day, having grown like untamed ivy let loose on the walls of a dilapidated building, counterpreservation took over, and became my whole project.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long time in the making. I have a decade’s worth of individuals and institutions to thank, over three continents and nine cities where the research and writing for this book were carried out. This book, like many, started with a doctoral dissertation, written in the Program in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester. My main adviser, Andrés Nader, was unwaveringly supportive, open-minded, and stimulating. I cannot thank him enough for his scholarly guidance and inspiration. My other advisers were equally encouraging and helpful. Joan Saab was a thoughtful and perceptive reader. Out of a sea of too much information and too-broad writing plans, she helped me single out the one idea that ended up becoming the book. Douglas Crimp helped me become a more rigorous scholar and a more precise writer. He is the one who led me through the intellectual field of visual and cultural studies from the very beginning. Celia Applegate was a patient interlocutor, empathetic toward my subject and sensitively attuned to my writing style; she turned my attention to the voices behind the walls of the buildings.

For more than a decade, my friends and colleagues Margot Bouman, Jennie Hirsh, Derya Ozkan, Roni Shapira, T’ai Smith, Lisa Uddin, Norman Vorano, and Catherine Zuromskis have read my work, held my hand, given me practical help and advice, and inspired me through example. You all have my gratitude and admiration, always. Very special thanks to Rosalyn Deutsche, whose work has inspired and informed my own, and who helped me find my way to graduate school.

xiv Acknowledgments

During my studies, many professors and mentors introduced me to ideas, theorists, and works that inform this book, both at the University of Rochester and at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo at the University of São Paulo: Janet Berlo, Tom DiPiero, Paul Duro, Marta Dora Grostein, Elizabeth Grosz, Rachel Haidu, Randall Halle, Ricardo Marques de Azevedo, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Jorge Oseki, Vera Pallamin, Regina Prosperi Meyer, Rebeca Scherer, Catherine Soussloff, David Walsh, Sharon Willis, Erika Wolf, and Janet Wolff. Equally important were comments and support from my peers: Lucy Curzon, Renato Cymbalista, Margo Eastlund, Pedro Fiori Arantes, Mariana Fix, Leanne Gilbertson, Beth Hinderliter, Beatriz Kara José, April Miller, Silvana Olivieri, Renata Pereira Barbosa, Matt Reynolds, Renata Ursaia, and Amy Wlodarski. And I could not have finished this work without the swift, efficient, and brilliant help of two Berlin-based research assistants: Anne Doose in 2005 and Irene Hilden in 2015.

I was very lucky to find a rich intellectual home for this book in the Signale series. It is an honor to have as my editor Peter Hohendahl, who championed this project and steered it in the most productive direction. Signale managing editor, Kizer Walker, supported me through what was at points a nerve-wracking process. His insightful guidance and patience are much appreciated. I am forever indebted to the manuscript reviewers, who provided me with such attentive, detailed, generous, and helpful comments. They understood what I was trying to do, and helped me do it better. I also want to thank the entire Signale editorial board for supporting this project.

Along the years and across many institutions I have continued to meet scholars who each imparted something to this work. Martin Berger, Jennifer González, and Gary McDonogh were and continue to be terrific academic mentors who encouraged me and showed me the way to getting this published. Heinrich Hermann contributed very thoughtful advice on ideas, references, and the subtleties of the German language. Enrique Martínez gave me a provocative architect’s perspective. For their feedback, support, and inspiration I also thank Monica Amor, Christopher Bardt, Mary Bergstein, Sara Blaylock, Julia Bryan- Wilson, Luis Carranza, Paola Dematté, Barbara von Eckardt, Daniel Harkett, Donna Haraway, Carola Hein, Leora Maltz-Leca, Barbara Miller Lane, Stella Nair, Daniel Peltz, Lisa Saltzman, Azade Seyhan, Elliot Shore, and Lynnette Widder.

At my current home, the University of Minnesota, I am deeply thankful for the intellectual companionship of Greg Donofrio and Lisa Hsieh. My colleague and mentor Katherine Solomonson not only cheered me up, but was also the most amazing reader and editor I could have hoped for. Jane Blocker helped me overcome one of the toughest challenges of this manuscript. Renée Cheng, Gail Dubrow, and Marc Swackhamer provided much-needed support and encouragement. I also thank Constance Severson, Martha McDonell, and Janaya Martin for their administrative help with various issues, and the students who took my classes at the

Acknowledgments xv same time that I was finishing this book for their understanding regarding grading delays and shorter office hours.

Institutional support was crucial for my research and writing. I am grateful for the funding I received from the Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, and the Friends of the Library, all at the University of Rochester; the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst; the Rhode Island School of Design; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and the Imagine Fund at the University of Minnesota. I also relied on the resources, materials, archives, and professionals of the Freie Universitit Berlin; the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin; Studio Libeskind; raumlabor Berlin; the Haus Schwarzenberg; the Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen; and the Fachhochschule Polizei Brandenburg. A heartfelt thank-you goes to the libraries and librarians at the University of Rochester (especially Stephanie Frontz); Bryn Mawr College (Iliana Chaleva); the Rhode Island School of Design; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and the University of Minnesota. I owe extra gratitude to the interlibrary loan offices at these institutions (with a special shout-out to the staff at the University of Minnesota).

My stays in Berlin were brightened by the friendship and hospitality of Rita Bakacs; Anke Lehmann and Guido Schmitz; Christine Schuster; Jörn Tessen; Paul Antonius, Lola Wagner, and Tillmann Wagner; and most especially Martin Bloem, who has continued to assist me for over a decade in all sorts of last-minute queries. In Berlin and elsewhere, I benefited from the patience and generosity of many professionals: Anne Albrecht, Helmut Bräutigam, Meike Danz, Ralf Dehne, Heinrich Dubel, Marcela Faé, Doris Fleischer, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Esther Häring, Jörg Haspel, Andrej Holm, Annemargret Hein, Udo Hesse, Wolfgang Hiepen, Werner Kernebeck, Stephan König, Christian Kyelczynski, Daniel Libeskind, Giinter Morsch, Anna Maria Odenthal, Philipp Oswalt, Jutta Ramien, Blase Rösch, Christian Röttele, Sibylle Schulz, Christian von Steffelin, Berthold Weidner, Henryk Weiffenbach, Saskia Wendland, Christian Wendland, Jutta Weitz, Petra Wilfert-Demirov, Ursula Wilms, and Henner Winkelmiiller.

Finally, without my family, to whom this work is dedicated, there would have been no book. My parents, Ester and Paulo Sandler, have supported me emotionally, intellectually, and materially so that I could follow my dreams. They inspire me through their professional and intellectual example, their own books, writings, and ideas, and their ethics. They make the world a better place. My brother and my sister-in-law, Luiz and Carolina Sandler, and my niece, Beatriz, have lovingly cheered me on. My husband, Antoine Yoshinaka, has spurred me to see this work through, setting up deadlines, encouraging me to take action, sitting through crying sessions, and making it possible for me to finish this by taking care of our daughter and our house as I spent long hours in the office. Most of all, I thank my daughter, Clara, who has patiently waited through interminably busy, stressful, and in many ways painful months of book writing. This book is for you, my love.