Reconstructing Berlin

Dominik Bartmanski and Martin Fuller

City, 2018, vol. 22, issue 2, 202-219

Abstract: Using the relational concepts of scale, substance and style, we develop a sociological perspective on the built environment that takes into account but extends beyond specific political conditions. We investigate three examples of grand civic architecture that have successively occupied a central site in Berlin. The Palast der Republik built by the authorities of the German Democratic Republic replaced the Prussian City Palace only to be demolished three decades later, giving way to a replica of the imperial palace that is currently under construction. We show how this drama of destruction, construction and reconstruction spanning different temporal and political contexts substantiates a cultural sociological framework with wider applicability. Investigating the importance of the site, we show how these recurrences indicate that a will to grand architectural representation and ritual destruction is not reducible to any one specific political ideology. This, in turn, indicates that a deeper imperative of symbolic politics is at work. The life and death of great Berlin palaces show how materiality and meaning are interwoven to entrench political legitimacy.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13604813.2018.1451100 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:22:y:2018:i:2:p:202-219

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CCIT20

DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2018.1451100

Access Statistics for this article

City is currently edited by Bob Catterall

More articles in City from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().