Recovering Essence through Demolition: The "Organic" City in - berlin

24. Koch, "Das ist das Berlin der Zukunft," 3.
25. Ibid.
26. In the 1950s, the term fiberaltet (obsolete), with its pejorative under-
tones, was used as a synonym for "old." It implied that a building has a cer-
tain lifespan and has to be demolished-and not renovated-whenever its
span is over.
27. Karl Mahler, "Bedingungen des allgemeinen Ideenwettbewerbs fiir den
Wiederaufbau des Hansa-Viertels in Berlin" (Conditions for the Hansavier-
tel competition), letter of 12 June 1953, 3, file on Competition no. 27
(Hansaviertel), archive, Berlinische Galerie, Museum fiir moderne Kunst,
Fotografie und Architektur.
28. In a presentation of their architectural principles, the Hauptstadt Berlin
organizers claimed that "the traditional concept of 'city' is dead." Quoted
in "Hauptstadt Berlin," Bauwelt 49, no. 29 (21 July 1958), 686.
29. Notice no. 12 of the Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin (Berlin Statisti-
cal Authority), Rep. 120, no. 655 (Nov. 1945), quoted in Harald Bodenschatz
et al., "Nach 1945. Wiederaufbau, zweite Zerst6rung und neue
Tendenzen," in Josef Paul Kleihues, ed., 750 Jahre Architektur und Staidte-
bau in Berlin (Stuttgart, 1987).
30. Hans Scharoun, "Vom Stadt-Wesen und Architekt-Sein" (lecture given
at Fritz Schumacher Award ceremony, Hamburg, 12 Dec. 1954) in Peter
Pfannkuch, ed., Bauten, Entwiirfe, Texte, Schriftenreihe der Akademie der
Kiinste, vol. 10 (Berlin, 1993), 229.
31. Hugo Hiiring, conference presentation, quoted in Klaus-Jakob Thiele,
"Weltstadt zwischen Elbe und Oder" Bauwelt 51, no. 13 (28 Mar. 1960),
345.
32. See Max Wertheimer, "Experimentelle Studien fiber das Sehen von
Bewegung," Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie (Berlin, 1911), repr. in Max
Wertheimer, Drei Abbandlungen zur Gestalttheorie (Darmstadt, 1963); and
Wolfgang K6hler, Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationdren Zustand
(Braunschweig, 1920).
33. Hans Scharoun, "Beschreibung des Wettbewerbsentwurfs fiir Hauptstadt
Berlin," 9 Sept. 1958, Nachlass no. 212, 2, Nachlass Scharoun, Archiv
der Akademie der Kiinste, Berlin.
34. The attack against the historicism of nineteenth-century architecture
reached its first climax with Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos at the turn of the
twentieth century. By the time Walter Gropius called for an architecture
that "must be invented, not imitated," this position can be deemed main-
stream among architects and urban planners. See Walter Gropius, "Not
Gothic but Modern for Our Colleges," New York Times Magazine, 23 Oct.
1949.
35. Hugo Hoffmann, "Hauptstadt Berlin Wettbewerb 1958," Architektur
und Wohnform 66, no. 8 (Oct. 1958), 354.
36. This was fundamentally different from the cities of Austria and Italy
that were mentioned in Camillo Sitte's influential publication Der Staidtebau
nach seinen kzinstlerischen Grundsdtzen (Vienna, 1889), where they are pre-
sented as models for a return to pre-nineteenth-century principles of urban
design.
37. Eberhard Schulz, "Forum und Bazar. Der internationale Wettbewerb
zur 'Hauptstadt Berlin,'" Deutsche Zeitung und Wirtschaftszeitung (Stuttgart),
30OJuly 1958.
38. Edgar Wedepohl, "Der Wettbewerb 'Hauptstadt Berlin' und seine
Ergebnisse," Bauamt und Gemeindebau. Zentralblatt fiir Bauverwaltungen und
offentliche Bauwesen 12, no. 31 (Dec. 1958), 374.
39. Sabina Lietzmann, "Der Ideenwettbewerb 'Hauptstadt Berlin,'" Neue
Ziircher Zeitung, 17 Aug. 1958.
40. According to the guidelines of the preparatory committee for the
Hauptstadt Berlin competition, only a handful of the most famous buildings
had to be preserved, such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Staatsoper, or the
368 JSAH / 63:3, SEPTEMBER 2004
Baroque Zeughaus on the boulevard Unter den Linden. The preservation
of most other surviving historic monuments, such as Schinkel's famous nine-
teenth-century Bauakademie on the left bank of the Spree River, was merely
mentioned as "desirable," but by no means as absolutely necessary.
41. Examples in which the jury celebrated the respect of the existing city
include the purchases of the projects by Wolfgang Rasper/Horst Kolster,
Alfred Jacobs, and Klaus Offermann. With regard to the fourth prize, given
to Richard Gall, the jury objected that the proposal did not take into
account the old buildings. "Hauptstadt Berlin," 445-47 (see n. 9).
42. Berliner Morgenpost, 7 Aug. 1957.
43. Klaus Frank, "Mufi Alt-Berlin sterben?," Welt am Sonntag (Hamburg),
9 June 1957.
44. Rolf Schwedler, response to Frank, "MuB Alt-Berlin sterben?," Welt am
Sonntag (Hamburg) 16 June 1957.
45. West Berlin's first urban renewal program, later dubbed "total demoli-
tion renewal" by its critics, was passed in 1963 by the city administration.
Schwedler was one of the most committed advocates of this program, which
foresaw the demolition and rebuilding of 56,000 apartments in the historic
inner-city districts of Wedding, Tiergarten, Kreuzberg, Sch6neberg, and
Neuk6lln. Almost 140,000 inhabitants were affected, approximately 10 percent
of West Berlin's population. Schwedler was one of the driving forces of
this policy. See Bodenschatz, Platzfreiflir das neue Berlin, 171-84 (see n. 7).
46. In this sense, the term Weltstadt was already commonly used by Berlin
journalists at the turn of the twentieth century to describe the metropolitan
status their city had attained in the preceding decades. See Berliner Tageblatt,
morning ed., 2 Mar. 1911, 16; Vossische Zeitung, 3 Mar. 1911, 2-3; and
J. Ciiddow, "Die
Entv6lkerung
des Berliner Stadtkerns," Berliner Tageblatt,
morning ed., 3 Mar. 1912, 9-10.
4747. Hans Stephan, quoted in Hubert Hoffmann, "Hauptstadt Berlin. Ein
politischer Wettbewerb," Bauen und Wohnen 3 (1959), 105.
48. "Protkoll iiber die Sitzung des Preisgerichts fiir den Wettbewerb
Hansaviertel im Ernst-Reuter-Haus am 15.12.1953" (Protocol of a jury
meeting for the Hansaviertel competition at the Ernst-Reuter-Haus on 15
Dec. 1953), 7, Wettbewerb Hansaviertel file, archive, Berlinische Galerie.
49. Ulrich Conrads, "In der Sprache dieser Stadt," Bauwelt 52, no. 41/42 (16
Oct. 1961), 1159.
50. H. G. Rebitzki, "Ein Stiick der Wahrheit oder der Chimaire. Zum Wett-
bewerb 'Hauptstadt Berlin,"' Baukunst und Werkform 11, no. 8 (1958), 443.
51. Ibid., 442, 443.
52. In the mid-1930s, Griindgens was appointed director of the Staatstheater
(now Konzerthaus, on the Gendarmenmarkt square), where he would
have his greatest success in the role of Mephisto in Goethe's drama Faust.
Kraull played leading roles in several Nazi movies, most infamously in the
anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Siltf (1940).
53. Numerous contemporary journalists interpret the Interbau and the
Hauptstadt Berlin competitions as the first steps toward reviving Berlin's
prewar grandeur. See, for example, Walter Lenning, "Riesenspielzeug
Hauptstadt Berlin," Sonntagsbhlatt (Hamburg), 6 June 1958; K. J. T [Klaus-
Jakob Thiele], "Weltstadt zwischen Elbe und Oder," Bauwelt 51, no. 13 (28
Mar. 1960), 345-49; and Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin), 31 July 1958.
54. Helmut Kotschenreuther, "Berlin von morgen," Berliner Morgenpost, 29
June 1958, 35.
55. Berlinische Galerie, Hauptstadt Berlin, 83 (see n. 3).
56. "Hauptstadt Berlin," 445, emphasis added (see n. 9).
57. For an account of the organic metaphor in the architectural context of
the nineteenth century, see Caroline van Eck, Organicism in Nineteenth-Cen-
tury Architecture (Amsterdam, 1994). At the turn of the twentieth century,
Frank Lloyd Wright connected the term "organic" with an architecture
that was liberated from a strict Euclidean geometry. He thus propagated