There is an exhibit in Berlin this year about Albert Speer’s (/Hitler’s) architectural plans for Berlin in the mid-20th century. The exhibition shows the pictures, plans and architectural models for the city.
From the Time article:
“In close collaboration with his confidant and architect of choice, Albert Speer, Hitler sought to cast his megalomania in concrete by radically reshaping the city’s center. His dystopian World Capital Germania, in the Fuehrer’s own words, would ‘only be comparable with ancient Egypt, Babylon or Rome. What is London, what is Paris by comparison!’”
“In a series of caricatures, which used to adorn Speer’s office walls and are on display at the Berlin exhibition for the first time, Berlin is presented as one huge construction site. In one of the drawings, an oversized building crane accidentally picks up the Reichstag. Another one shows a completely dug-up city center with the caption: ‘When it all begins, it will be no laughing matter for pedestrians.’”
There are also plans for an underground tour: “through Germania construction sites dug by the Nazis under Berlin’s Tiergarten park. Blind tunnels started as early as 1938 — subway and traffic tunnels, mainly, lined with marble — were rediscovered in the 1960s.” (Spiegel Online)
I find it incredible that Hitler and Speer (historical objects they now are) show such disregard for the history of the city of Berlin. They are basically willing to tear it all down and start over. So often already, and maybe this is the Angeleno in me talking, it feels like architectural history is a treasure that shouldn’t be so easily cast aside. I also find it ironic that a man who wanted to build buildings that would look good as ruins could be so disrespectful of a city that was not yet in ruins. I don’t misunderstand him—I realize his ruin value theory had more to do with Nazi pride than respect for history, even future history. Speer’s plan was like an architectural retelling of history, like a much more ambitious precursor to Stalin’s retouching of photographs, leaving falsified records that would be taken as truth and evidence of greatness in the distant future.
See also:
- Berlin’s already oft rewritten architectural story (city as palimpsest) (Trümmerfrauen)
- BLDGBLOG’s look at topological value, urban ruins, Speer, and more (where he poses the question: why stop at ruin value, when there’s fossil value to look forward to?)
- Myth Germania photo gallery