ABSTRACT
Contrary to popular belief, however, the stated long-term goal of the Arnimplatz renovation was not preservation but demolition and rebuilding in a modernist form. The Magistrat mandated the renovation of the neighborhood to preserve the buildings only for another thirty years.4 Thus by the turn of the millennium all old buildings, including the renovated ones, had to come down. The same resolution which prepared the modernization of the Arnimplatz area also foresaw the demolition of the entire southern half of the Prenzlauer Berg district with approximately 14,000 apartments, including the neighborhood around Kollwitzplatz.5 The demolitions were never carried out; some of the old buildings around Kollwitzplatz were renovated under the socialist regime in the 1980s, and the area is now one of Berlin’s most soughtaĞer neighborhoods. How can this contradiction be explained? How did these diametrically opposed approaches-preservation of historical buildings on the one hand and comprehensive demolition on the other-become part of the same policy guidelines? And how come that the Prenzlauer Berg district was eventually spared from large-scale demolitions?
