Modulverantwortung: Felix Wettstein
Lehrteam: Ludovica Molo, Felix Wettstein, Thomas Kohlhammer
Assistant: João Moreira

The City is Wilder Than You Think

Checkpoint Charlie between memory and future

Hardly any European city has been more radically transformed in its recent history than Berlin. And it has happened several times – the crucial events to be emphasized are the destruction by the Allied forces at the end of World War II, the division of the city in the post-war era and the period around the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This semester, we will be collaborating with the In-depth module. The focus of scrutiny is the city of Berlin and the era around the fall of the wall. The end of the 1980s was a turning point. From a historical perspective, the fall of the Berlin Wall ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and hence to the end of the Cold War. We will be working with an emblematic site where the wall once stood: Checkpoint Charlie. Astonishingly, several plots have remained vacant in this central point in the inner city. We seek to engage critically with a historically important place in the fabric of the city. Traces and memory play just as much a role as the search for the identity and meaning of the city of the future.

With regard to the structural and commercial decline of the central part of the city around Potsdamer Platz and Friedrichstrasse, the city of the future can scarcely rely on memory and education. It is necessary to develop scenarios to bring urban life back to this place.