Publisher's Synopsis
On August 13, 1961, under the cover of darkness, East German authorities sealed the border between East and West Berlin using a hastily constructed barbed wire fence. Over the next twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall served as an ever-present and seemingly permanent physical and psychological divider in this capital city and between East and West during the Cold War. Similarly, stark polarities arose in nearly every aspect of public and private life, perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the built environment.
In Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin, Emily Pugh provides an original comparative analysis of selected works of architecture and urban planning in East and West Berlin during the "Wall era," to reveal the importance of these structures to the formation of political, cultural and social identities. Pugh uncovers the roles played by organisations such as the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Heritage in West Germany and the East German Building Academy in conveying the preferred political narrative of their respective states through constructed spaces. She also provides an overview of architectural works prior to the Wall era, to show the precursors for design aesthetics in Berlin at large, and also considers projects in the post-Wall period, to demonstrate the ongoing effects of the Cold War.
Pugh examines representations of architectural works in exhibits, film, journals, magazines, newspapers and other media, and discusses the effectiveness of planners' attempts to 'win the hearts and minds' of the public. Ideas of home, belonging, community and nationalism were common underlying themes on both sides of the wall, and instrumental to the construction of cultural and physical landscapes.
Overall, Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin offers a compelling case study of a divided city poised at the precipice between the world's most dominant political and ideological forces, and the effort expended by each side to sway the tide of public opinion through the built environment.
