ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on how the spatial design has addressed the issue of mining and industrial territories of former East Germany; How the landscape project been measured with the shrinking of extensive and heterogeneous portions of the territory? How is it possible to inhabit the restored space of the mining territories? The chapter presents a scene of the journey to the shrinking territories of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) that starts from the experience of the Internationale Bauausstellung Fürst-Pückler-Land and the transformation of the largest energy production region of the GDR into today's lake landscape. It traces the long history of this transformation, investigates its reason, breaks down its form and multiple actors, questions its advantages and ambiguities and reconstructs its debate and consensus. The artificial reconstruction of ecological and cultural resources shapes soils, social imaginaries and ways of living, promising to transform the Lausitz region from mining land to lake land and its people from miners to Seebewohner.