ABSTRACT

The plans to rebuild a new Old Town around the Nikolai Church-Berlin’s oldest house of worship-preceded the German Democratic Republic. In the 1930s, there were plans to convert this neighborhood into an open-air museum for architectural treasures. Even before the area was devastated by the air raids of the Second World War, frequent demolition and rebuilding had leĞ only a handful of buildings that could be deemed truly historical.7 The National Socialist authorities therefore wanted to recover the old-town aspect. They planned to take down approximately thirty long-standing residences from the eighteenth century in different parts of Berlin and rebuild them on the streets adjacent to the Nikolai Church. The existing buildings from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were to be torn down.8 The embankment of the Spree River two blocks south of the church was designed to feature a complete row of baroque façades meant to provide a scenic skyline from the other bank.9 In the same way, the north and east sides of the areathe houses facing Mühlendamm and Spandauer Straße-were to be adorned with relocated historical buildings.10 None of these plans were carried out; most buildings that were to be relocated were subsequently destroyed during the Second World War.