Selective Memory: Contesting Architecture and Urbanism at Potsdam's Stadtschloss and Alter Markt.

This paper is about the curious phenomenon whereby GDR-era modernist buildings in Germany are being demolished and substituted with new buildings which appear older than those they replace. The most famous example is the 'reconstruction' of Berlin's Stadtschloss on the site of the GDR's Palast der Republik. This discussion concerns a lesser-known project: the 'reconstruction' of Potsdam's Stadtschloss. The project involves re-housing the Brandenburg 'Landtag' in a new structure with classical façades which replicate the Prussian palace that formerly stood on the site, and densifying the surrounding district in order to return it to an approximation of the pre-war layout. The Stadtschloss building will be a concrete-framed structure - like the modernist buildings to be demolished - but this time faced with classical decoration in brick and stone. The paper argues that this project displays a strange insecurity about the present and a desire to return to some nostalgic image of the 'olden days', replacing the recent past with a looser image of an older past. It concludes by discussing a polemical counter-proposal which seeks to make current values apparent architecturally as another historical layer in the city fabric. It argues against the selective removal of previous architecture, recommending instead that multiple interpretations and the images of multiple pasts might co-exist simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]