Bloom and Bust

More than two decades of deconstruction, renovation, and reconstruction have left the urban environments in the former German Democratic Republic completely transformed. This volume considers the changing urban landscapes in the former East - and how the filling of previous absences and the absence of previous presence - creates the cultural landscape of modern unified Germany. This broadens our understanding of this transformation by examining often-neglected cities, spaces, or structures, and historical narration and preservation.
 

More than two decades of deconstruction, renovation, and reconstruction have left the urban environments in the former German Democratic Republic completely transformed. This volume considers the changing urban landscapes in the former East — and how the filling of previous absences and the absence of previous presence — creates the cultural landscape of modern unified Germany. This broadens our understanding of this transformation by examining often-neglected cities, spaces, or structures, and historical narration and preservation.
 

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Gwyneth Cliver and Carrie Smith-Prei

PART I: GROUNDWORK

Chapter 1. Preserving the Past Before and After the Wende: A Case Study of Quedlinburg
Heike Alberts

Chapter 2. No Man’s Land: Fiction and Reality in Buddy Giovinazzo’s Potsdamer Platz
Christopher Jones

PART II: PROJECTIONS

Chapter 3. Cinematic Reflections of Germany’s Postunification Woes: Architecture and Urban Space of Frankfurt (Oder) in Halbe Treppe, Lichter, and Kombat Sechzehn
Sebastian Heiduschke

Chapter 4. Reclaiming the Thuringian Tuscany: The Touristic Appeal of Bad Sulza and its Toskana Therme
Erika Nelson

Chapter 5. Berlin through the Lens: Space and (National) Identity in the Postunification Capital
Susanna Miller, Jennifer Ruth Hosek, Tamara Nadolny, Heidi Manicke, Flavia Zaka, Trevor Blakeney, and Jude Hirman

Chapter 6. The Amputated City: The Voids of Hoyerswerda
Gwyneth Cliver

PART III: THEORIES

Chapter 7. Sounding out Erfurt: Does the Song Remain the Same?
Heiner Stahl

Chapter 8. Restoration and Redemption: Defending Kultur and Heimat in Eisenach’s Cityscape
Jason James

Chapter 9. The Bauwerk in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility: Historical Reconstruction, Pious Modernism, and Dresden’s “süße Krankheit”
Rob McFarland with Elizabeth Guthrie

Afterword
Rolf J. Goebel

Notes on Contributors
Index