Architecture, Politics and Identity in Divided Berlin

Emily Pugh has written a comprehensive study of the role of architecture as a system of representing Cold War tensions in divided Berlin, from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Wall. She argues that the pains of reconstruction and division, political antipathy and a grindingly slow economy on either side of the city’s boundary may best be viewed through the actions of average citizens, city planners and politicians in coping with the war-torn urban environment. Tracing the parallel developments in East and West while showing moments of convergence in how each state tackled social malaise, poor housing stock and consumer expectations during moments of economic crisis, she demonstrates the utility of thinking about changes to the built environment as ideological in both the political and the cultural sense. That is, they are driven by a professed need, yet how change bears out speaks to the specific social values undergirding the moment at hand. How projects are envisioned, the conflicts in bringing them to fruition and sometimes the lack of desired response by the art and design community or by the people in whose name the buildings were built in the first place sheds light on the extraordinary experience of living and working in the divided city.

Antipathy · Built environment · Economics · Economy · Elite · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Architecture · Engineering · European history and politics · History · Law · Urbanization and City Planning