Project Description

The research project "The Warfare Footprint. Architecture as Collateral Damage: Decoding the GDR Paradigm" is developed as a proactive response to devastation inflicted by brutal warfare across continents where targeted destruction of environments and cultures bears striking resemblance to the footprint of World War Two; the investigation of spatiotemporal panoramas and rehabilitation efforts, in particular in East Germany from the afterwar decade to the fall of the Berlin Wall, grants the foundation for alternative integral coding of GDR architecture far beyond limitations imparted by stylistic stereotypes; this detailed account of speedy rebuilding under communal mandate presents a principal departure from conventional surveys, a structured illustrated resource instrumental for a broad range of courses and academic modules, a meaningful contribution to theoretical debate which also offers competent implications for contemporary postwar reconstruction projects.

Project Abstract

Current geopolitical dispositions are charged by reincarnations of radical nationalisms, warfare, and personal tragedies of a great part of the Earth’s population. The significance of this project is due to the urgency of its holistic objectives, vital approach to rebuilding of environments and cultures, and is prompted by the limited scope of English-language studies aimed to encipher similar panoramas of post-World War Two architectures. Recognized among global urbanities for quality of life, vibrant traditions and technological advancement, Germany in particular, was spiritually and physically shattered by Nazism, despised for calamities it perpetrated, experienced dependence on the victors who themselves suffered infinite devastation of their own lands. Immense challenges coded the GDR paradigm by expanding on sociopolitical development and identifying ideological and psychological strategies. Novel alternative periodization transforms the East German architectural canon far beyond limitations imparted by stylistic envelopes and attends twentieth-century annals for reanimation of regions ravaged by war today.