andreas huyssen present pasts.pdf

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PRESENT PASTS

Urban Palimpsests and the Politics ofMemor y

Andreas Hu y ssen

STAORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STAFORD, CALIFORNA


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Stanford Universit PessStanfod, Calrnia

© 2003 by the Board ofTrsts of the Leland Stnford Junior Univeity.ll rights rerved

Sevel of th says in this book appeard in erlie vesons:Chapte! " Presnt Pasts Media Politics Amnesia Public Cu, peia issu on

gobalization 12, no I (woo: 2138Chapt 2 Monumental Sduton New German Crque 69 (Fll 1996 r8200Chapte 3· "h Void of Berlin Crca Iqu 2• no 1 (Autumn 1997 57-81.Chaptr "e the War Brln a Palimpsest Harvad Des Magzne

(Spring 2ooo 7075Chapt 5· Fea of MichTranformations ofTime Sqre Havad Ds

Maae (Wint/Sping 1998) 2628Chaptr 7 Unland h Orphan's Tuni in Nancy Pincnthal et a Dor Sace

(ondon Phaidon 2000 90103Chaptr 8 Of Me and Mimsis Reading Spiegman with Adoo New German

Crtque 8I (Fall woo 65-82Chapter o "Twn Mmoies Aeimags of ne/Eevn G Room 7 (Sping

2002 8J

ntd in th United Stats of Amia on acid-free archilqalty pape

ibray of Congres CataoginginPbiation Dta

Huyssn ndasPrsent pasts rban palmpsest and the polits of mmoy Inda Hysen

p m(Culta mmoy n the psnt

Inluds bibliogaphal referen o804745609 (loth a pape) o8047567 (pb alk papr) Memory (Philosophy 2 itoryPhilosophy 3 MemoySoci pects

4 Ctie and townPsychologa apect 5 Memor in litatu Tie . SriesBD87H89 20030c2 2002007737

Original Printing 2003

Lt gur blow ndiats yar of ths printng2 I o 09

ypst by Heathe Boone in /5 Gaamond

For N ina, again


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Contens

Illustratns x

Inouon

Peen Pa: Mea Pol Amnea

Monumenal Seuon Co n Ben 30

3 e Vo o Beln

Ae e Wa Ben Palme 725 Fea o Me: e me Squae Reevelopmen 8 Memoy Se n an Expane el e Memoy Pak

n Bueno Ae

7 Do Saleo Memoy Sulpue UnndThe Orphan Tun

8 O Me an Mme: Reang Spegelmanw Aono 22

9 Rewng an New Begnnng: W G. Seba

an e Leaue on e A Wa 38

O wn Memoe Aemage o NneEleven 8

Ntes


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Illustration

2.1 bert Speer, Great Ha (model 33

22 Christo Wrapping of the Reichstag Berin (1995 ) 34

23 Christo Wrapping of the Reichstag 37

3- hiip Johnson Haus near former Checkpoint

Charlie (1996) 52

3 .2 Former Checkpoint Charie with imitation Statue

of ibert (1995) 5

33 Wa area between Leipziger latz and Brandenburg Gate 56

3·4 Abert Speer North-South Axis model) 57

35 Instalation in the void left by the dismanting

of the Wal (1991) 58

36 Potsdamer Platz around 1930 59

37 Potsdamer latz construction site with INFO BOX (1995) 63

38 Berin Museum with the Jewish Museum (mode) 67

3 ·9 Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum plan) 68

310 Void inside the Jewish Museum 70

41 The Reichstag under renovation 76

42 Reichstag cupoa outside view 77


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xii ustrations

4·3 Reichsag cupola, inside iew 78

44 The new Posdame Plaz plaza 82

5. Cuen consucion a souhwes cone o

Fotysecond See and Sevenh Avenue, sie

of he fome Disney soe (2) 9052 N Vicory Theae acoss fom ome Disney soe

on Foy-second See 2

6 Monumen o he Vicims o he Sae Teo (mode) I02

6.2 Monumen o he Vicims of he Sae Teo (mode) I04

6.3 The Belin Museum wih he Jewish Museum (gound plan) I06

6.4 Maya Lin Vienam Veeans Memoia Washingon IJ

65 The Jewish Museum (1999) I087.1 Dois Scedo Unland: The Orphan' Tunic (997) II2

72 Dois Salcedo Unland: Th Orphan Tunic (deail r) I4

7-3 Dois Salcedo Unnd Th Orphan' Tunic (deail 2) IIf

7·4 Dois Salcedo Unnd Th Orphan Tunic (deail 3) II7

9 he igh om he eah o he moon: an aemp

o skech he elaions of gaity If3

Even now, when I try to remember .. the darkness does

not lift but becomes yet heavie as I think how little we canhold n mind how eveythng is constantly lapsing nto

obvion wth every extinguished life how the wold is as t

were draning itse n that the histo of countless places and

objects which themselves have no power of memoy is

neve head never described or passed on

-w. G. SEBALD, Austrlitz p. 24


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The Crii of Hitory

Hsoa memo oda s no wha used o be. I used o makhe eaon of a ommun o a naon o s pas bu he bounda beween pas and pesen used o be sone and moe sabe han appeaso be oda. Unod een and no so een pass mpne upon he pesen ouh moden meda of epoduon ke phooaph meoded mus and he Inene as we as houh he exposon of hsoa shoashp and an eve moe voaous musea uue. The pashas beome pa of he pesen n was smp unmanabe n eae enues. As a esu empoa boundaes have weakened us as he expeena dmenson of spae ha shunk as a esu of moden means of anspoaon and ommunaon

In mes no so ve on ao he dsouse of hso was hee ouaanee he eave sab of he pas n s pasness Tadons evenhouh hemseves oen nvened o onsued and awas based on seeons and exusons ave shape o uua and soa fe. Bu ubanspaeepee wh monumens and museums paaes pub spaes andovenmen budnsepesened he maea aes of he hsoapas n he pesen Bu hso was aso he mseensne of modenne eaned fom hso Tha was he assumpon o abou wo enues hso n he Wes was que suessfu n s poe o anho he


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4 Introuction

en o he p and hu aben. neviaby every a o memoy ariewih i a dimenion o beraya orgeing and abene hi i wha heepiemologial dioure o onruivim whih in i egiimae ri-ique o he nauralizaion o radiion and naion oen overhoo imark uimaey and orrely impie.

hinking abou memory in hi way make u reaize ha oday

emphai inere in memory doe have onequene or he p hehioral pa one ued o give oherene and egiimay o amiy ommunity naion and ae in a dioure ha Eri Hobbawm aed heinvenion o radiion hen hoe ormerly abe link have weakenedoday o he exen ha naiona radiion and hiorial pa are inreaingly deprived o heir geographi and poiia grounding whih are re -organized n he proee o uura globalzaion may mean hahee grounding are wrien over eraed and orgoen a he deendero loal heriage and naional auheniiy lamen. Or i may mean hahey are being renegoiaed in he lah beween goblizing ore d newproduion and praie ooa ulure. he orm in whih we hink o

he pa i inreaingy memory whou border raher han naiona hiory wihin border Moderniy ha brough wih i a very rea ompreion o ime and pae Bu in he regier o imaginarie i h ao ex-panded our horizon o ime and pae beyond he loal he naiona andeven he inernaiona n erain way hen our onemporary obeionwih memory in he preen may wel be an indiaion ha our way ohinking and iving emporaiy ie are undergoing a ignian hih i wha he whoe aadem debae abou hiory v. memory i ubliminy al abou bu one wouldn' know i by liening in. d ye hemo inereing pe o he debae i wha i may porend or he emergene o a new paradigm o hinking abou ime nd pae hioy and ge

ography in he wenr enury

Pn Pa and Ou Modny

hi book i no inereed in aking ide in he bale beween hiorian and memorian. n my dual role a uura hiorian and ierayrii remain onvined ha he expoion o memory dioue a heend o he wenieh enuy ha added igniany o he way we underand hio and deal wih he empora dmenion o oi and u

Introuction

ural le ue o memory have beome p o publi dioure d uurl ie in way rarey ahieved by proeion hioriography alone heie eay o hi book expore ha onelaion in boh i generaive an

i probemai dimenion.At he ame ime we need o akowedge ha he vaue o hioy i

oneed oday n way ha dier rom Niezhe' rique o he ahval

and he monumen he preure on he radiion noion o hioy aobeive and diin rom memo are o mniold oday ha i would behard o weigh hem in heir repeive vidiy he riique o hioriog-raphy a a ool o dominaion and ideoogy oreuly ariulaed by uhoii hiori o he ae nineeenh enuy a Waer Mehrng in Germany and laer by Wer Benamin in hi radil hough overaed polia riique o ll hioriim; he poNiezhean aak on lineriyon auaiy nd on he myh o origin or eo a ariulaed in he worko Fouau yoard and Derrda he poolonil riique oWeern hiory a ndamenaly impiaed in imperii and rai Weernmoderniyhee argumen are oo wel known o bear repeaing here in

deal The aak on he horymoderny nkge h beome uh an ereue in erain ineleual irle oday ha one may wel w o ome ohe deene o he embaled enerprie o wriing hio ha o my mindremain an eeni omponen o he power o memoy dioure ie

Bu omehing ele il underie he urren poiia and onepulargumen again horography he enighened noon ha one anearn rom hiory ha been o violenly diproved boh a he oi dhe pol iia eve a we a in i experieni dimenion ha he very legiimay o he hioria enerprie i haen. Who oday an give a on-den anwer a a Friedrih Shiller o he queion o wha end onehoud udy univer hiory? hough we woud probably r wan o

queion onep like univer and hiory in ine wih one or heoher o he abovemenoned rique we woud no doub oninue andengage he pa wih guo. oday urn again hiory i very unikeHenry Ford' inamou hiory i bunk. he deire or narraive o hepa or rereaion rereading reproduion eem bounde a everylevel o our uure Hioy in a erain anonia orm may be deegi-imzed a ar a i ore pedagogia and phoophial mion i onerned, bu he eduion o he arhie and i rove o orie o humahievemen and uering ha never been greaer


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6 Inroucion

B wha ood s he memor archve? How can dever wha hs-or alone no loner seems o be able o oer? We know abo he noor-os nreabl of memo and he fse promses of ahenc s oenendowed wh he sse oda canno be Nesches creave forenwhch wold be nohn more han selecve memor Clea for Ne-sche he "free spr was he aen of creave foren b sch arso-

crac nellecasm s boh ndesrabe and nrealsc a a me whenhe hrea of socal prodced amnesa s s oo rea o noe Nor canhe solon be a smple rern o he promses of he re as he areaan ben arclaed oda n he neolb era dscorse of economc andechnolocal lobaaon Sch rmphalsm of lobal ows s nohnb a form of ncreave foren ha nores he hsor of capalscces and he crashes of echnoloca opas read he lobalaonfanases of he 990s have hemselves become par of he memorarchve and s cabne of delsons I s all he more mporan ha a ame when an avalanche of memo dscorses seems o have overwhelmedan earler acvs manaon of he fre we acall do remember he

fre and r o envson alernaves o he crren sas qo I jswll no do o repace he weneh cens obsessons wh he frewh or newl fond obsessons wh he pas We need boh pas andfre o arcae or poca soca and clra dssasfacons whhe presen sae of he world nd whle he hperroph of memor canead o sefndlence melancho xaons and a problemac prvlen of he ramac dmenson of lfe wh no ex n sh memo dscorses are absolel essena o mane he fre and o rean asron emporal and spaa rondn of lfe and he manaon n ameda and consmer soce ha ncreasnl vods emporal and colapses space

Meia ofr Memo

he essas of hs book whch were wren beween 996 and fa00 and whch appear here n slhl moded or expanded form a-emp o coner sch endences oward he vodn of me and he collapsn of spaa bondares he read specc rban phenomena arworks and lerar exs ha fncon as meda of crca cral memoroda he focs s exclsve on objecs and pracces n he presen ne

Inrouction 7

of he mos neresn cral phenomena of or da s he wa n whchmemor and emporal have nvaded spaces and meda ha seemedamon he mos sabe and xed ces monmens archecre andsclpre er he wann of moderns fanases abo crio x nhiloand of he desre for he pr of new bennns we have come o readces and bldns as palmpsess of space monmens as ransformable

and ransor and scpre as sbjec o he vcssdes of me fcorse he major of bldns are no palmpsess a all red onceremarked he same space canno poss l have wo deren conens Ban rban mana n s emporal reach ma wel p deren hns none place memores of wha here was before maned alernaves owha here s he sron marks of presen space mere n he manawh races of he pas erasres losses and heeroopas he cener ofBern and s reconsrcon aer ncaon provde a ke example forhe workins of sch an mana

Lerar exs have never no even n modernsm been abe o denher palmpsesc nare and he phlolocal problem of dffern ed

ons has alwas dsnshed lerare from bdns or monmenshe rope of he palmpses s nheren erar and ed o wrn b can also be frfll sed o dscss conraons of rban spaces andher nfoldn n me who makin archecre and he c smpno ex Readn he c of Berln or New York's mes Sqare as pa-lmpses does no mean o den he essenal maeral of exan bldns Readn memo races n he sclpre of ors Salcedo or n he archecral andscapn projec of Benos iress Memor Park does noransform hese obecs no s anoer form of wrn M concern nal hese essas s o respec he ndamenal maeral and formal radons of he deren meda of memor I dscss M focs on readn

palmpsess s no some mperalsm of rir a reproach somemesvoced aans erar crcsm afer Derrda as wel as aans ceranforms of deconsrcve archecre s raher he convcon ha er-ar echnqes of readn hsorcall nerexa consrcvel anddeconsrcvel a he same me can be woven no or ndersandn ofrban spaces as ved spaces ha shape collecve manares In a morepramac ven he rban essas n hs book aemp o ndersand hendamenal emporal of even hose hman endeavors ha preend oranscend me hroh her maeral real and relave drabl


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8 Introduction

One othe thing emains to be said as ook back on moe than adecade of citica wok on memoy My ovea choice of topics and memory media in this book is guided by the conviction that too much of thecontempoay memoy discouse focuses on the pesonalon testimonymemoi subjectiviy taumatic memoyeithe in poststuctuaist psychoanalytic pespective o in attempts to shoe up a theapeuic popua

sense of the authentic and expeientia f the 980s wee the decade of ahappy postmoden plualism the 1990s seemed to be haunted by taumaas the dak undeside of neolibea tiumphalism The concen withtauma adiated out fom a multinational eve moe ubiquitous Hoocaust discouse. t was enegized in the United States as in Latin Ameicao South ica ae apatheid by the intense inteest in witness and su

vivo tes timonies and it meged with the discouses about AIDS slaveyfamily violence child abuse ecoveed memoy syndome and so on Thepivieging of tauma fomed a thick discusive netwok with those othemastesignies of the 990s the abject and the uncanny al o whichhave to do with epession spectes and a pesent epetitivey haunted by

the pastSuey the pevalence of the concen with tauma must be due to thefact that tauma as a psychic phenomenon is located on the theshod between emembeing and fogetting seeing and not seeing tanspaencyand occlusion expeience and its absence in epetition But tauma cannotbe the centa categoy in addessing the age memoy discouse t hasbeen all too tempting to some to think of tauma as the hidden coe of amemory te al both memoy and tauma ae pedicated on the absenceof that which is negotiated in memoy o in the taumatic symptom othae maked by instabiity tansitoiness and stuctues of epetition Butto coapse memoy into tauma think woud unduy conne ou un

destanding of memoy making it too exclusivey in tems of pain suffeing and oss It woud deny human agency and lock us into compusiveepetition. Memoy whethe individual o geneation poitica o pubic is aways moe than ony the pison house of the past

The moe seious poli tica question emeges when the psychoanalyticnotion of tauma is simpy tansfeed to the histoical aena We ae usedto distinguishing beeen pesonal memoy and pubic memoy But whathappens when we talk about histoical tauma? What is at stake when weconside as we seem to do eve moe fequently, the whole histoy of the

Introducton 9

twentieth centuy unde the sign of tauma with the Hoocaust inceasingy functioning as the utimate ciphe of taumatic unspeakability o un-epesentability? nd what if this assessment is then extendedunde theguise of vaious foms of apocalyptic and anachic thinkngto the holehistory of eightenment modenity: modenity as the tauma that vicimizes the wold that we cannot eave behind that causes all of ou symp

toms? The newy found popuaity of Hoheime and Adonos DialecticofEnlightenment, the cult status of Benjamin's angel of histoy and thetauma wok of Cathy Cauth Shoshana Felman and othes all aise thesuspicion that we ae simply eaticuating Feudian phylogenetic fantasiesin a diffeent signicantly dake key Ultimatey this is philosophy ofhistoy enteing though the back doonot via Hege o Max to besue but via Feud This appoach to history as tauma I woud suggestdoes not help much to undestand the poitical ayes of memoy discousein ou time although it may wel epsent one of its majo aticuations

At the same time exploations o f memoy in ou wod cannot dowithout the notio n of histoical tauma The focus on tauma is legitimate

whee nations o goups of people ae trying to come to tems with a histoy of vioence sueed o violence pepetated. But the tansnational discouse of human ights may give us a bette handle on such mattes thanthe tansfe of psychoanalysis into the wod of politics and history Fo i tis pecisey the nction of public memoy discouses to alow individuasto beak out of taumatic epetitions. Human ights activism tuth om-missions and juidica poceedings ae bette methods fo dealing withhistoical tauma Anothe is the ceation of objects atwoks memoialspublic spaces of commemoation as they ae discussed in this book Heethe anaysis of how memoy and fogetting peade eal public space thewold of objects and the uban wold we ive in becomes cucial. The e

constuction of Bein as the Geman capita afte unication povides apehaps unique case in which this latte dimension has poduced a paa-digmatic public memoy space even if many of the achitectual and planning esults have eft us moe than disatised

Pehaps fo that eason I could not bing myself to exclude moepopely liteary eadings fom this book Actualy the liteay essays onSpiegeman and Sebald should seve to highlight the diffeence that petains between eading texts and eading uban space They also show howcontempoay texts that mix language and image foegound the palimp


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0 Inouction

sestic nate o all witin to eat eect and in ceatively new ways. Bothae memo texts in th e most emphatic sense wokin in complex ways onthe isse o histoy and its epesentationthe histoy o the Holocast inthe case o Spieelman and the histoy o the satation bombins o Geman cities in Wold Wa II in the case o Sebald Both athos ae ndamentally concened with hanted space and spatial imainaies. Both texts

acknowlede that contay to the belie o many histoians epesentations o the visible will always show esides and taces o the invisible.Spieelman's and Sebalds texts hant s becase they themselves aehanted. A liteate that is both postmimetic and postmodenist bothhistoical and attned to the eases o the histoical ecod patakes inthe oce play o emembance and oettin vision and blindness tanspaency and opaqeness o the wold

At the same time we cannot be entiely condent that contempoaymemoy discoses and the clt podcts they eneate will ae bettethn tadition histoy in shapin pblic debate in the lon n. The paadox is that memoy discoses themselves patake in the detempoaliin

pocesses that chaacteie a clte o consmption and obsolescenceMemoy as epesentation as makin pesent is always in dane o collapsin the constittive tension between past and pesent especially whenthe imained past is scked into the timeless pesent o the llpevasive vita space o consme clte Ths we need to disciminate amon memoy pactices in ode to stenthen those that conteact the tendencies ino clte to oste nceative oettin the bliss o amnesia and whatthe Geman philosophe ete Slotedijk once caled "enlihtened aseconsciosness. I hope that in some small mease this book may contibte to sch discimination o who wants to end p in the land o thelotseates enoyin one's own oblivion beoe the eal oney into the

pt h even ben that oney into the past withot which thee can beno imainin e te

Present Pasts: Media, Politic neia

ne o the most spisin cltal and political phenomena o ecent yeas has been the emeence o memoy as a key cltal and political concen in Westen societies a tunin towad the past that stands instak contast to the pivilein o the te so chaacteistic o ealiedecades o twentiethcenty modenity. om the ealy wentieth centy's apocalyptic myths o adical beakthoh and the emeence othe "new man in Eope via the mudeos phantasms o acial o classpication in National Socialism and Stalinism to the postWold Wa II Ameican paadim o modeniation modenist clte was eneiedby what one miht call "pesent tues. Since the 980s it seems theocs has shited om pesent tes to pesent pasts and this shit inthe expeience and sensibili o time needs to be explained histoicallyand phenomenoloically

Bt the contempoay ocs on memoy and tempoality is mostlyabsent om mch ecent innovative wok on cateoies o space maps eoaphies bodes tade otes miations displacements and diaspoasin the context o postcolonial and cltal stdies. ot so lon ao in theUnited States thee was a widespead consenss that in ode to ndestand postmoden clte the ocs had to be shied om the poblemais o time and memoy ascibed to an ealie om o hih modenism


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14 Pt Pt

uations that are hstorlly dstant and poticaly dstnct f rom the org-

nl ven. In the trnsnaionl movement of memory discourses, he Holo -

caus os ts quly ndex of the specc hstorl e ven nd begns t

nction metaphor for other trumatic histories nd memories. The

Hoocaust a a un versal trope s a prerequste f or s decenterng and ts

use a po w erf ul prism through w hich w e may look other instances of

genocde. The gob and he oca pect of Hoocust memoy have en

ered into new constelations tht beg to be anlz ed c e by cse. While

the comparson w th the Hoocaust may rhetorcy energze some ds

courses of trumatic memory, it may so serve s screen memory or sm -

ply block insight into specic locl histories.When t comes o present pt memory of the Hoocaust nd ts

pace n the resessment ofWestern modernty howver s not the whoestoy My subpos mke up the current memory nrrtve n s broadestscope and dstngush our tm qute ceary from earer decdes of thscentury. Let me jut st few of the sent phenomen. Snce he 1970s n

Europe and the Unted States we have the hstorczng restoraon of odurban centers whoe museum vag nd ndcpe, vrous nton hertge nd patrmony enterprse the wave of nw museum achtecture thatshows no sgns of recedng the boom n retro shons nd repro rnture,he ms-marketng of nostga, the obsessve sefmuezaon per vdeorecorder, memor wrtng nd onfessonl terure, he rse of autobiogrphy and of the postmodern hstorc nove wth ts uney negotatonbetween ct nd cton the spred of memoy prctic n the visu rtsoen centered on the medum of photogrphy and the ncrese of hstorc doumenties on teevson, ncudng (n he Unted Ste) chnne

dedcted entrey to hsory, the Hstoy Channe On the traumatc sdeof memoy cuture and besde the ever more ubqutous Hoocaus dscourse we have the vt psychontic erature on uma; the controversyabout recovered memoy syndrome the hstorc and current work reatedo genocde IDs savery, and sexua abuse the ever more numerous pubc conroverses bout potcy pan annversres, commemortionsand memoras; he es pethora of pooges for the pt by church eaders and potcins n Frce, Jp and the Unted Sttes And nybrngng together memoy entertanmen nd ruma, we hve hd he

wordwide obsession wth the snng of a presumaby unsinkabe

stemshp tht mrked the end of other gded ge. One cannot be quite

Pt Pt

sure whether the ineon success of he m Titics a meaphor formemores of moderny gone wry or whether t rcute he meropos'sown anxetes abou he ture dspaced o the pa. No doubt, the words beg museed d we py our prt n t. Tot rec seems to behe goa So s hs an archvst's ntsy gone mad? Or s there perhapssomehing ese ske n hs desire to p these varous psts nto thepresent? Somethng that is specc to the structuring of memory nd temporty oday and that h ot been experenced n the sme way n patages?

F requeny su�h obsssons wth memory nd he pt are expned a ncton of he aes n de sice but I thnk one h to probe deeper o come t terms wh·ht I w c the cuture of memory" that ha become so persve n North Anc socetes snce he ate 19s Whathere appears argey s an ncrengy successfu mretng of memory byheWestern cuture ndustry n the conte of wht German cu socoogy hs ced our Erbnisgeselchaf cqures more expcty poc

necton n other pars of the word.11 Especy snce 1989 the ssues ofmemory and forgettng have emerged as domnant concerns n poscommunst counres n Eatern Europe and the former Sove Unon hy remain key poitcay in the Mde st they domnte pubc dscourse npost-partheid Souh rc wh s Truth nd Reconcaton Commsson, nd they re presen n Rwnda and Ngeria hey energze therace debate ha has erupted n Austraia around the ssue of the stoengeneraon they burden the retonshp among Jpn and Chna andKorea and they determne to vrying degrees the cuur and otcadebte bou the desprecdos" nd ther chdren n post-dctatur so

cet n an Amerca, rasng fundmenta quesons bout humanrghs voaons, ustice, and coecve responsbty.The geogrphc spread of he cuture of memory s s wde mem

oys potic us are vared, rngng from a mobizaton of mythc patsto support ggressvey chuvnst or fundmentst potcs (e.g., postcommunst Serba Hndu popuism n Inda to edgng ttempts, nA-gentn nd Che, to create pubc spheres of rea memory that w

: counter the potc of forgetng, pursued by postdctatorshp regm e

. ther hrough "reconcli oC' nd ofc mnestes or though repressve

· slncng But he ul lne beween mythc pat and rel p t s not l-, :ys ey to draw-w hich is one of the conundrums of ny politic of


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r8 Pnt

srandale that ou secula culue today, obsessed with memoy a it is salso somehow n he gips of a fea even a teo of fogetting. Ths feaof fogetng aculate self paadigmatically aound issues of the Holocaust n Euope and the United Staes o the apaci in Latin Ameca Both shae the absence of a pope uial sie, so key to the nutuingof human memoy, a fact that may help eplain the stong pesence of the

Holocaust n Agentnean deaes But the fe of olvion and disappeaance opeates n a deent egiste well. Fo the moe we ae asked toememe n the wake of the infomaton exploson and the maketng ofmemoy, he moe we seem to be n dnge of fogeting and the stongethe need to foget. At ssue s the disnction between able pats and dsposable data My hypothess hee is that we ae tyng to counteact thsfea and dange of fogeting wth suval stateges of public and pvatememoalizaon. The tun towad memoy s subliminally enegzed ythe dese to ancho ouselves n a wod chaactezd y an ncesng nstaility of time and the factuing of lived space At the same time, we

kow that such stategie of memozton may in the end themselves betansto and ncomplete. So I mt come back to the queson: why? Andespecally why now Why this osession wth memoy and he past and

why this fea of fogetting Why ae we bulding museums as if thee weeno omoow And why is t that the Holocaust has only now ecomesomethng lke a ubiuitous cphe fo ou memoies of the twentieh centuy, n ways unmaginale even twenty yeas ago?

III

Whateve the socal and polcal causes of the memoy oom n itvaous subplo geogaphes, and sectoings may have been, one thng scetan we cannot discuss pesona, geneatonal o pulc memoy sepaaely fom the enomou inuence of the new media as ces of al fomsof memoy. Th t s no longe possile fo instance to thn of the Holocaut o of any othe hstoca tauma a seiou ethcal and poliical issueapat fom the mutple ways it s now linked to commodition and spectaculaizaton n lms museums docudama Intenet sites phoogaphybook com cion, even fa tales (Robeto Benign's La vita e bl)and pop songs But even if the Holocaust hs een endlessly commoded,this does not mean that each and evey commodcation inevtably ana-

nt at

izs s an stoial even ee is no pue space outside of commodiycltue howeve much we may dse such a space. Much depend theefoe on the specic stateges of epesentaion and commodation pused and on the context n which they ae staged. Smilaly the pesumablytivial Ebnglchafmssmaketed lifestyles spectacles, and eetngevents s not devod of a sustanve lved ealty that undees ts suface

manfetatons. My gument hee s this the poblem is not solved y simply opposing seous memoy to tval memoy, the way hstoians someime oppose hsoy o emoy tout court, to memoy undesood as thesujectve and tiva stu out of whch the hstoan mak the ea thngWe cnnot siply p the seous Holocaust museum against Dsneyedtheme paks. or_this wod only epoduce the old hgh/low dichotomy ofmodenst culu�e n a new guise, as t did in the heated debate that pittedClaude Lanmanns Shoah a pope epsentation (becase a nonepesentaton) of Holoaus memoy agnst Steven Spelegs hnd$ Lt ts commec tivzation Once we acnowledge the consttutve gap

etween eaty and t epesentaton n language o image, we mut npncple e open to may dieen possilies of epesenting the andt memoies Ths s not to say ha anythng goes The queston of uayemans one o e decded case by cse. Bu the semiotic gap cannot beclosed by ay othodoy of coect pesentaon To ge a muchamounts to Holocaust modensm.14 ndeed phenomena such ashindl Lit and Spieleg's vsu achive of Holocaust suvivo testmones compel us to thn of aumatc memo and enteanment memoy togethe as occupyng the sme public space athe than O see them mutuly clusve phenomena Key questons of contempoa cultue aelocated pecsely at the theshold beween aumatc memo and the commeca media I s too easy o ague hat he n events ad spectacles ofcontempoay media societies eist only to povde elief to a soci ad poltcal body haunted by deep memoies of violence ad genocide pepeated in s name, o}ha they ae mounted only to epess such memoeo tauma s maketed as much as the fun is and not even fo dientmemoy consumes t s so oo to sugget hat he spece of he pnow hauntng moden socete n heetofoe unknown foce actualy atculate, y way of displacement, a gowing fea of he tue a a time whenthe belef n modentys poges s deeply shaken

We do kow that he meda do no tanspot pulic memoy inno


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20 P P

cently. They shape it in their vey stucture ad form And here-i linewith McLha's wellworn poit that the medium is the message-it becomes highly signicat that the power of our most advanced electronicdepends etirely o quntities of memoy Bill Gates may just be the latestincarnaton of the old America idelmore is better But "more s nowmeasured i memo btes and in the power to recycle the past Gatessmuchadvertised purchae of the largest collection of origial photographseve is a cae in point: in the move from the photograph to its digit recycling, Walter Benamis at of mechaca reproduction (photogaphy)h reganed a aura of orgali Which goes to show hat Beamins mous gumet about he loss or decay of the aura in modei was awayonly half the sto; it forgot that modernization itself created the auratic effect to begin with. Today digitalizatio mes the oigil photographauatic. ter al s Beamin aso knew, the cultue indstry of WeimarGermay already then needed the auratic as a marketing strategy.

So let me idulge here for a momet i the old cultue ndut argu

ment that Adorno mounted aganst what he thought to b Benamns unwarated optimism about technologic media. If today the idea othe total archve males the triumphalists of cyberspace embrace goba f>tes aa McLuha the prot iteess of memoys mas marketeers seem to bemore pertinent i expaing he success of the memory syndrome Simplyput the pst is sellig better thn the ture But for how long, oe wonders

e the headline of a spoof posted o the ternet US. Department ofRetro Was We May Be Runng Out of a Pat The rst paragph reads At a press conferece Moday, US Retro Secreta AnsoWilliams issued a strongly worded warnig of an immiet Naton retro

crss, cautioig that if curret lvels of U.S reto consumption are alowed to cotinue unchecked, we may run entrely out of past by soonas 005. Not to worry. We aready have the maketing of pass hat everexisted Wtness he recet introductio of the Aeobleu poduct line,1940s ad 90s nostagia cleverly organized around a ctional Pais azzclub that eve eisted, but where all the jazz greats of the bebop age esaid to have performed a product le replete wth origa diaes, orginal cuts on Cs, and oigl memorabla, all avalable the UnitedStates at ay local Bares and Noble Original remaes are in, ad otoly as merchandise as cultura theorists ad citic we are obsessed with

P P

representation repetition replicatio and the cultue of the copy withor without originl.

With al this goig o it seems fair to ak once he memo boom ishisto, o doubt t will be wll ayoe have remembered athing atall? If al of the pat ca be made over arent we ust creating ou ow illu

sios of the pt while gettig stuck in an evershrinkg presentthe preset of shorttem recyclg for prot, the present of intime productoninstat entertaimet, and placebos for our sense of dread and isecuritthat lies barely uderneath th suface of this ew gilded age at noher nde sicl Coputes, we were told would ot know th dierece beee the year 000 andthe yea 90but do we

IV

The ctics of late capitalist amesia doubt that Wester media cultre has aythig left resembling re memo o a strong sense of hisoy Drawg o the stadard Adorea argument that commodicationeuals forgetting, they argue that the marketing of memo generatesohig but amesia I do ot d this argumet covincing It leaves toomch out It s too easy to blame the dlemma we nd ouelves in on themachinations of the culte idust ad the proliferatio of the ew media. Somethg else must be at stale that produces the desire for the pasti the rst place and that males us respod so favorably to the memoymrkets That somethg, I would suggest, s a slow but palpable trasfor

maton of temporali in our lives, brought on by the complx itersec1 tions of technologcal chage, mass media, and ew patterns of cosump

to work and global mobly. There may ndeed be good reaons tothik that the drve to memorialize h a more benecial nd geerativedimesio well. However much our curret cocers with memo

• may involve a dsplaced fea of the future, ad however dubous thepoposiio may now strike us that we ca learn from histo memoyclture llls an mportat nctio the curret tansfomatio of temporl eperiece hat ha followed the wake of the ew medias mpact

on human perception ad ssibil. In the followig, then, I would like to suggest some ways to hkabout the elationship betwee our privilegig of memo ad the pst o

the oe hand ad the potential mpact of the w media o perception


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18/94


19/94

26 Preet Pt

one simple answer to such a question but memoy-in4ividual generational, pulic cutral, and still ineitably nationl memorymustsely e part of it. Pehaps one day thee will even emege something likea goba memory s the dierent part of the wold are drawn ee tightertogethe B any such global memoy will always be pismatic and het'·eogeneou raher han holisic or unve

In the meantime we have to ak: how shoud een local regiona, nationa memorie e ecred, sructured, and epreened? Of coue hiis a ndamentally politicl question aout the nature of the pic spheeabot democay nd its ture, abou te changng shape of nationhoodcitizenship and identity The answe wl depend to a lage degee on local constellations ut the glol spead of memory dicoures inditesthat something moe is at stke.

Some have trned to the idea of he archive a conteweight to theeveinceasing pace of change, a a site of tempo and spatial peseation. Fom the point of iew of the archie fogeting i the ltimate

tansgression But how eliable or foolpoof ae our dgitlized archiesComptes are baely y years old nd aleady we need "data achaeologist to unlock the mteries of eay pogramming just think of the notoious YK poblem that recently haunted our computerized breacacies Billion of dola wee spent to preen compute networ fomgoing into retro mode from mistaking the year fo . O conider the lmost inuperable diculies German authoitie now hae decoding the vat body of eectonic ecod fom the forme East Gemanstate a world that disappeaed togethe with its Soietbuit manfamecompues and its Eat German oce ystem. Reecting on sch phe

nomena a senio manage chaged with infomation technology at theCanadian achies ws recently quoted as saying " one of the geatironie of the nfomation age f we dont nd methods for enduringpreeation of elecronic recod thi may e the era without a mem�oy17 The theat of oion hs emeges from the ery technology towhich we entut the vat ody of conempoay records and data hatmost ignicant pat of the culturl memory of ou ime

The current transformations of the tempor imaginary ogh onby itua space and tme may hgligh the enaling dmenson of memoy cultue Whateve the pecic occasion, ause o context the inensememory pactices we witness in so many dieen pat of he wod oday

Peet Pt 7

aticulate a fundamenta cisis of an ealier stucte of tempoaliy thatmrked the age of high modernity wth is tut in prge and development with its celeration of the new a utopian as radically and ireducily othe, and with i nhaken elef in some elo of history Poliicaly many memoy practices today counteact the tiumphlism ofmodernizaion toy n t aest guie of he dcorse ofgloliaton

Cltraly hey epess the gowing need fo spatial and tempol anchoing n a wod of inceng x n eer denser netwo of compressed ime and pace f histoiogaphy hs hed an ealie eliance onteleoogicl matenarates and ha gown moe kepic of nationlitframings of its bect matte todays critic memoy cultes with theiemphaes on hman rights, on mnoity and gender ies and on esseing vaious national and intenaionl pss go a ong way to providea welcome impet for wiing istoy n a new key and thus for guaranteeing a tre of memory In the bestae scenaio, the cutes of memory ae inimaely linked in many part of the world to prcese of de

mocratiztion and strugge for hman ights to epanding andtengthening the pbic phee of cii ociey Slowing down rathe thnspeeding up epanding the naure of public debate tying hea thewoun incted in the pt nurtng and epanding liale space atherthan deroy it fo he ae of ome tue promise secuing qulitytimethoe eem to e unmet cutal need in a gobizing world, andloca memorie ae ntimately lnked to thei aicuation.

But the p cnnot gve u what the te h fed delive Therei no aoiding coming back to he downside of what some old l amemoy epdemic, and hi rin me back to Nieche whoe econd n

tmely meditation on he ue nd aue o f hitory oen quoted in contempoay memory deaes may e untimely eer Clealy, the memoyfee ofWeten meda ocietie is not a onsming hitoic fever in Niesches sene which coud e cued by pducte fogetting It is rater amnemonc fee caued y the cyevir of mnea that at ime treaen to conume memoy itef Therefore we now need poducie remembering more han podctie fogeting In etospect we an see how thehistol fe of Nietches ime nctioned to invent nation traditionsin Euope to egiimiz te mperil nationstae nd to give culturl coherence o conictive ocietie n te te of the Indutil Revotion ndcolonia epansion By compaion, the mnemonic convusion of Nort


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t at

Atantc cuture today seem mosty chaotc, fragmentay and free-oatngacrss ur screens. Even in paces where memry practces have a vey clearptca focus such as South rca Argentna Chle and most recentyGuatemaa they are aected, and t a degree even created by internatnmeda coverage and t memo obsesons. A suggesed earer securngthe pst s n ess risky n enterprse than securng the future Memory af

ter a be no substtute for justce and utce tef wll nevtaby be entanged n the unrelaby f memy But even where cutural memrypractces ack an expct pltc focus they do press a soce's need frtempr anchrng when in the wake f the nfrmatn rvlutin and anever�ncreasng tme-space cmpressn the relaonshp among pt, present and future s beng transfrmed beynd recgntn

In that sense c and natnal memy practces cntest the mythsof cyber-captalsm and gbazatn and their den f tme space andpace N dubt some new cnguratn f tme and space wl eventualymrg frm hs egn New tchngis f transprtatn and

cmmuncatn have aways transformed the human perceptn tmeand space n moderny Ths was as true fr the ralroad and the teephnethe rado and the arpane as t w be true for cyberspace and cbertme.New technoges and new meda are s ways met by anxetes and earthat ater prve to have been unwarranted r even rdculus. Our age wbe no eceptn.

At he same tme cyberspace aone s not the apprprate mode formagnng the gobal ture. ts nton f memoy s msleadng a fsepromse. Lved memory s actve, ave, emboded n the socathat s nndvduals mes grups natns and regns. These are the memresneeded t cnstruct derenta oca tures n a gba wrd. There is nodubt that n the ong run al such memres w be shaped t a sgncntdegree by the new dgta technooges and ther eects but they w notbe reducbe to them T nsst n a radc separaton between "rea andvrtua memory strkes me as quxotc f ony because anythng rememberedwhether by ved or by magned memys tsef vrtua Memry s aways transtor notorousy unreabe and haunted by frgettngn bref human and scal. A pubc mem t s subect to changeptca, generatn ndvdua. t cannot be stored forever nr can it besecured by mnuments. Nor fr that matter can we rey on dgta retreva systems to guarantee cherence and cntnuy. f the sense f lved

a 29

tme s beng renegtated ur ctemprary cultures f memory weshud t frget that tme s n y he pt s presevatn ad transmsson. f we are ndeed suerng rm a surfet f memory we do needt make the ert t dstngush usabe psts frm dspsabe pasts Dscrmnatin and productve rememberng are caled fr, and mss ctureand the vrtu ma are nt nherenty rreconcable wth that purpose

ven f amnesa were a by-prduct f cyberspace we must not alow thefear of forgettng t verwhem u. Perhaps t s tme t remember the ture rather than smpy t worry about the future f memy


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Monumenta Seduction Chrito in Bein

. Any discusson of monumentalty and modernty w nevtablybrg to md the work of Rchard Wagne: Th Ring the aesthetcs of theCmtkunrk the monumental atst the hstoy of the Bayeuth fesval But the noon of monumentty that Wagne repesents must be ocated n ts concete nneteenth-century hstorc aesthetc and natonacontext as we as n ts potcal and cutual effects that have come o�mnate ou understandng of the monumental n geneal My purposeS to offer some eectons on the categoy of the monumental tsefwhch, t seems to me s beng recoded n the contempoary context of oacous and everexpandng memoa cutue My centl concen thenS the ssue of the monumental n elaton to memorygeneatona mem

y mmoy n publc culture natonal memory memoy become stone archtectueand the specc contemporary context I wll addess sGermany aer uncaton heeas Gemns have been abong unde the epoach of foget-tg or epessng the hstoc past snce 1945, crtcs for soe tme now

have atcuated the evese reproach naton of memory. In fact sncethe 98s Gemany has engaged n a mmoy mana of truy monumentaproportons Curently there ae sevea hundred pans n the works foHoocaust monuments o memoal stes over Gemany How do we

I

Ilt

Monumntl Suction 3

read th obsesson wth monuments whch n tsef s ony pat of a muchlarger memory boom that has gpped not just Gemany and that s muchwde n scope than the focus on the Hoocaust would suggest? The questons ased by ths conuncture are nvaaby potcal and aesthetc andcentrl to them s the categoy of the onumental both n ts spat andpehaps more mportant now n ts temporal codcatons We are facng

a paradox monumentalsm of but space or monumenta tendences ofany other medum contnue to be much mgned but the noton of themonument as memo o commemoratve publc event has wtnessed atumphal etun How do we thnk the reaton between monumentalas bgness and the commemoratve dmenson of the monument? I w eate thee events of the summer of 99 5 to dscuss the fate of monumentl and of monuments n our tme Chrsto's wappng of the Rechstag nBen the debate about the panned Beln monument fo the mudeedJews of Euope and Wagner n Bayeuth

Gemanysumme 995a few months before the h annvesayof natona uncaton he eghtyfouth Bayreuth Festva opened n uyunde the motto "edempton through ove An exhbt at Bayeuthscha Wagner Museum subtted Rchad Wagne and Eotcsm accompaed the Ftpil pefomances of nnhur itn n IolTh Ring of th Niblung and Prl woks that accodng to SvenFredrch the museums decto repesent a very speca knd of untyand toaty when appoaced from the ange of eotcsm and oveFredrch descbed eotcsm and love symbos of a counterwold enegzng Wagne's damatc concepton of edempton2 Bayreuth's needfor counteorlds and edempton, t seems s as stong as eve but tganed a very specc necton n 995

Gemany and edemptony yeas ae The country was n thegp of a elentless monument mana that may not subsde untl eerysquare me has ts own monument o memoa ste, commemoratng notsome countewold of ove but the rel wod of organzed destructon andgenocde that had adopted Wagne as one of ts heoes and pophets Intodays Gemany redempton through memory s the goa It wa patculay strkng durng the events makng the eth annversay of the end


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32 Monmntl Sction

of the Naz war o exermnaton that he dscourse of redempon Eln had a bu repcd

he earer dscourses o restuon rgt-mcn and reconcan rsnn I woud seem ha he Ger-mans have eagery approprated he rs par of he od Jewsh sayng thesecre of redempon s memory as a strategy or Hoocaus managemenn the 990s. The mos agrant case: he pan for a gganc Hoocaust

memoa, a santed concree sab the sze o wo fooba eds wh thenames of ns o vcs carved n stone n the heart o Bern usnrth of Her s former bunker and hus rgh on top of he norhsouth

s hat bert Speer panned o ay eeen hs megaomanac Grea Hat norh o he Brandenburg Gae and Her's trumpha arch o thesouh

.whch caed or he names o he falen of World War I to be

carved n stone. Te very ste and nscrpon pracce of ths przewnnngHoocaust memoa mode, whch has snce been dched as a resu ofpubc oucry, thus appe

ared to uncon both as mmess and coverup oanoher e memory, wth he requse monumenay o match he dmensons o Speers

orgna pan. I seems srkng ha a country whose

cuure has been gded or decades now y a deberae anascs an-monumenasm shoud resor to onumenta dmensons when t comesto pubc comemoraton of te Hoocaus for he reuned natonSomehng here s ou o sync.

.

Bu n anohe perspecv, ths embrace of he monumenta may

�o be a ha surpsg. Recalg Rober Muss observaon that heres nothng as nvsbe as a monumen, Bernand wth a o hsmemoracrazed Germanys opng for nvsby. The more monu-mens here are, the more the pas becomes nvsbe, and he easer so orget redempton, hus, through orgetng. Many crcs have de-scbed Germanys curren obsesson wh monumens and memoras as

te n so sube attemp at Entorgng, the pubc dsposa o radanghsocal wase.

Monumena nvsbty, at any rate was a stake durng anothermaor cut

ural eve� tha sumer n Bern he wrappng o the Rechsag

by he arss Chsto and JeanneCaude. Ths archecturay medocremassv bung of 85 rst housed the German paramen n he days ofhe eman Empre and then payed a cruc roe boh n the found-g ad

he opg o the Wemar Repubc, whch was procamedfrom ts wdowss 98 and guted n he famous Rechstag re of

Monmntl Sction

IGR Alb S Gra Hal Md Cu Arhu SldLba, Cumba Unvr

33

193 3, aer he Nazs' rse o power. ter 94 sood as a run and amemora o he faed repubc. Havng een turned nto a museum o re-cent Geran hsoy and used as a cereona space, was to resume ssymboc potca vaue wth he naona unty ceebraon of Ocoer990 For two weeks n he summer o 99 hen hs udng becameemporar y nvsbe s nvsbty an nerna onal meda even and pop-uar ove es ha ceebraed Germany and Bern as ony he al o heWa had done sx years before. For a bre oent German hsory enoyed the power o he Nbeungs lm. The proxm o monu-

mena memoy o monumena forgetng was there for everyone o seeBeaucaon and packagng he pas were at se boh n Chrsos poec and n he awadwnnng Hoocaust monument. Berns shortemredempon rom hsory t seemed oned Bayreuths redemptonhrough ove n eedng he underyng desre or orgeng

Predctaby enough some exuberant crtcs have caimed ha byransormng a monumenta wor of arctecure no a gganc scupure,Chrsto and eanneCaude turned a monumen of German hsory nto


23/94

FGRE Chri Wang h hag Brlin (199 h uh

Monumntl Suction 3

myth Wth suh Wnen bendn of hstoy myth nd the monument we e no one sused to nd the ojet desbed n omnent Gemn t joun s Gmtkuntwrk tht mde the Ge-mn t nto the ntenton t of t een befoe the Bonn oenment moed to Ben uh deuson exubene s mthed ony bythe nsoune wth whh Wne Adof Htes utue heo s ed

uon to tute t ms fo Ben The oem oud esy beontnued but ts onte ue I woud suest s mted.Wht I he ued so f mounts to symtomt eeye ew of

those thee utu eents n the summe of 99 edemton thouhoe edemton thouh memoy edemton thouh foettn. Nodoubt some woud fee the nteetu ostue stenthened by suh edutons of omexty. Fo othes the e questons emee ony now Is-nt ths whoe shotuted ument one mht s stutuy em-nsent of smst ntWnensm tht oses deent hstoot nd esthet estes n us nd teeoo mode tht dentes Wnes ous entey wth ts onsequenes n the Thd Reh?

Futhemoe doesn t ths nd of oh ete ts own ood onseneby ben oey ntfsst yes e the end of the Thd Reh nd of ot oetness a lmn? And thd snt t nd ofGsmtkritik tht eodues wht t tts nmey the dsuse tottnsm tht undees the onet of the Gsmtkuntwk nd tht msso muh of Wnes theoet nd t wtn

To od then eodun wht one tt deent ohseems to be ed fo. e most eed tht the oyoyene-wed Rehst whose oos osted fom shnn se n sunhtto muted y on oudoeed dys to bush ue unde the sothtst nht ws seeney nd t tmes unnny beutfu ts st monu-

menty both dssoed nd entued by htness of ben tht ontsted sty wth the su memoy of the heyset now eed h-tetue Cn one ey se of edemtonomhstoy when the ubdsussons bout the hstoy nd menn of ths budn wee neemoe ntense thn n the heted debes tht ed n men n themed nd n the ub t e bout the mets of Chstos oet Thedox s tht n yes st the e Rehst my he been moe nsbesuy nd hstoythn the eed budn ws now. Vene s not the sme s an. In e dsuse nd ub on


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Monumntl Suction

tet Chrst s veg fct as a strategy t make vsbe t vet revea what was he whe t was vsbe. Cceptay, the veg fthe Rechstag ha ather satay eect t mte the vce f ptcs assa, the memry f speeches frm ts wws f the rasg f Germar Svet ags ts rf a f the ca ptca rhetrc se. Ths pee p a space fr reect ad ctempat as we as fr mem

y. The trastress f the evet tsefthe artsts refse t prgthe shw p ppar emawas sch that t hghghte the temprat a hstrct f bt space the tes reatshp betwee rememberg a frgettg. the stgy vee bg tsef prce a memry qte deret frm that marked by the athtarascrpt abve ts prta VOLK, e gve t theGerma pepe frm hgh The ew ayer f pbc memry s that fa geey ppar evet f thsas f pepe mg ar thebdg day aer ay ceebratg a symb f Germa demcracy as frag a trastress The wrappe Rechstag ths became a mmet t emcratc ctre stead f a demstrat f state pwer

Eve f e sh t verestmate ths pbc eect f Chrsts prjectt des prve a ctervce t thse wh have merey crtce theHywzat f avatgarst art practces r have rece the wheevet t Bers esperate ee t sprce p ts terata mage.

Thkg abt ths crtca a atmmeta mes fChrsts prject I was reme fWagers w prvegg f the trastry, the ephemer the prvsa Ths whe he rst mage a perfrmace f Sigi he wrte hs fre Uhg that the theater fpks a beams erecte y f the cc a meaw ear Zrch,w be smate after three days a the scre bre. I a smarve whe t came t bg the theater Bayreth Wager aways

emphasze the prvsa atre f the archtectre, a Bayreth as abg tre t ee t be as atmmeta as Chares GarersPars pera cmpete the same year f 875 was mmet Wager's bref cabrat wth the archtect Gttfred Semper shpwreckeprecsey becase Wager rejected ay mmeta esg fr hs Festspehas, whch came t be ppary kw as the Bayreth bar.

If the esg f the Gmtkuntwk ca be see as a mmetam f the ftre the t s t sme etet cterbaace by Wagersvey mer sesb ty f the prvsaty a ephemeraty f stt

Monumntl ducton 7

IGR 3 Chr Wrppng h hg Cur Arhur Sld

Lb Clumb Unvr

taze art merty Mmeta esre a the cscsess fthe ephemera, the trastry are easy tes Wagers m, afact that, amg ther thgs, may epa Baeare's eary terest Wagers art The ry f crse s that Bayreth becme meta ts w ways a that Wagers art has becme eshe stae, a package precsey the ways he f mst bjectabe the cmpser Gacm Meyerbeer, hs emess whse cmmerca sccess Pars Wager ver cease t ere as ecaet a stere prsttte

a Germa The sccess f Bayreth hwever s eret frmwhat happee t the sbseqet mersms a avatgares as wecrprat t the ctre str. Bt there s st a eeper kagebetwee Wager a the emerget mersm f hs tme The grwgrecgt sce Baeare f the prvs, the trast_ theephemr a, yes, the fashabe as key parameters f merty geerates at the ppsg ed f a tese axs the esre fr astgmmetay what Pa Ear cad, a trasatabe phrase er sr de rer. I Wager, the aety prce by ths tes re


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26/94

Moumtl Suctio

Thrd Reh we shod remnd orselves ha monmenal as an aes-he aeo s as hsoral onnen and nsabe as an oher aes-he aeo Whle he monmena ma alwas be b and awesomewh ams o eern and permanene dern hsoral perods obv-osl have dsn experenes of wha ovewhelms and her desre forhe monmena wl dffer boh n qa and n qan. Ths he se-

dve power of eran forms of nneeenhen monmen edas he were o he poa need of he naona sae and he lraneeds of he boreose learl do no mah or aeshe or poasensbles b ha does no neessar mp ha we are free frommonmena sedons per se One we fos on he hsora speof monmenal I od wel mane arrvn a a onlson ha hedenaon of monmenalsm wh fassm and he oapsn of hedesre for he monmenal wh masohsm and sefannhaon odbeome eble as self an hsoral ex raher han as a nversa ondon or a meahsora norm

On f we hsore he aeor of monmena self an we

sep o of he doble shadow of a ksh monmenalsm of he nneeenh enr and he beose anmonmenasm of modernsm andposmodernsm ake On hen an we ask he qeson abo mon-mena n poena l new was

Wha hen of he dsorse of he monmena n Waner? I wl fo-s here on he lnkae beeen monmenalsm and he ver promnendsorse of ahere n Waner's proramma ra and heoreawrns whh I hod o be enral o Waners overal aeshe proe

In hs brllan sd of Baale enled Agist Achitctu DensHoler has poned o how he searh and desre for he monmena nmodern s was he searh and desre for orns. owhere s hslearer han n he nneeenh en The searh for orns beame n-evabe one he pola eonom and ndsral revoons had beno srp awa he reos and meaphsa seres of earer aes Thenneeenhen dsorse of orns was poded b wha Geor ksaer ermed "ransendenal homeessness as he coitio mo and owhh he opposed he opa of an neraed vlaon We have ome

Moumtl Suctio

o read hs nneeenhen obsesson wh orns and her mhrondn as fln he lr emzn needs of he posrevol-ona boreos naonsae n he p of aeleran modernzaonA he same me as he exampe of ks ndaes he searh for ornsand a new emeren lre od aso ake on an anWesern anapals and anmodern neon. The obsesson wh orns and mh

was no s reaona sae deoo or s lra deooa reeon.Is rh as Adorno ared was ha demonsraed how nneeenhen modern self onra o lbera and proressve beefs re-maned bond p wh he onsve dale of enhenmen andmh Waner s a ase n pon.

To beer ndersand he lnk amon mh he monmen and or-ns s mporn o remember ha for he nneeenh en nd onra o or own me he monmena was rs and foremos emboded nhe monmens of lassal anq monmens ransmed more oenhan no n framenar form Alhoh lassal monmens provded Eropean naons wh an anhorn n her ral roos hnk of he

rann of Greee over German) he searh for naonal monmens rsreaed he deep naonal pas ha deenaed a ven lre from boh Eropean and s nonEropean ohers ever more monmens werenearhedShleanns exavaons and he romane of arhaeolo aahed o hs name are paradma herehe monmen ame o aan-ee orn and sab wel as deph of me and of spae n a rapdhann wod ha was experened as ranso proon and nsable.nd he pma monmen n he nneeenh en's admraon for lassal and prehsor anq was ahere Ths was no on-dene ha Heel paed arhere a he ve bennns of ar. Monmena arhere espeahnk of he l of obelsks pramds

emples and memoral and bral owersseemed o aranee perma-nene and o provde he desred blwak aans he speedp of me heshn ronds of rban spae and he ransorness of modern lfeRhrd Waner wa ve mh of hs nneeenh en no gistarhere lke he moderns Baale b nhesan ; no gistorns b ve mh n searh of hem; no n favor of he pleasres ofransorness and fahon as Badeare w) b volenl opposed ohem and n prs of a new and permanen re ha wold brn ofron wha he aled he arwodhora ask kusltgschichtlich


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42 Monmntl Sdcton

Ab) f ms a nep ay magnae wn Fen menssse T see a as pefmng a wsal mssn s nee apeay Geman penmenn a ese fm e vepvegng fa an e n e pess f sapng nana eny n a pe peeng e fman f e Geman nansae Ts nn f as mssn ane Wagnes sefmage f e gens ae pn y s Noth

(nee) gve e Geman Vlk a new leAnyw Wagnes nepn f a ama an ms papaesn s wespea nneeeneny magnay f mpa aee sabe gns an my gnngs f e nan A e sameme e senas mnmenay f s as pje w e a ms eay n essays f e ae 18 40s an eay 8s k sapeagans e akp f Wagnes vfes ppsn a ean knf nneeeneny mnmenasm Hs wn mnmena pe fngng lfe e a f e e an a a w ansen e en sage f eaene an pn an w be ensne n e anna Ftp f Baye was eay peae n assmpns e

jen f meess asss nms a fa n s eyes aknwege ev empa an spaal neness f a a an sen ejen fe szng ae syes a e ae e pns fy an fasn Ts we ea n Te Ak f e Fe

She [aheue] prod he uldng whh eale eh had duedfm he fel need f eau he ee gehe he ndvdual dea f heew adng he wann fanc u f a ele lngng f alean hehe eve nan le f uldng hughu he wd n he me dnneed he n hhe flw he ae f Fahn whe fvluaw he need mu mae he wn eaue he nwhee hea he a f nneeaul Nee.

In s genee pes an s mens pwn f e nneeen enys sessn w s syes s passage an e ea as a kn fqe vnt lf Vennas Rngsae w eame s ena e emegene f aea mensm n Asa a few eaes eneF Wagne as f e n e se Venna menss fms f emnmenae asss an e ssfae j se eemans f e pesen b Wagne en aae tese emans emseves n a nvesazng mnmenazng e

I s easy see w Wagnes qe f e mnmena aeay

Monmntl Sdction 3

anpae Nezses eens n mnmena sy b wasNezse w n ne f s psmsy pbse agmens m878 s pne e neyng nan n Wagnes gagans mnmenay: Wagne gs e mnmenal eeves ne nvesay man In a smay nay way Wagne ses anvesazng an my mage f aee gn s wn ams

an aese mnmenay aeqae an emegng new e af e ms ama as e new Gmtkntwk. F e vey nn fe Gmtkntw s my ams namenay aea

Te meap f aee nns ke a emv n a Wagnes key pgamma s"A an Revn "Te Ak f eFe Opea an Dama an A Cmmnan my Fenswen a e me e was nepazng s eagy Despe s enan qe f e mnmena an f asss nms s pmayme f e awk f e fe s Geek agey an e my fAngne emes e fnng sne f Wagnes egy f asean eeemng ve as e penn f e apse f te esng sae

s ea Wagnes eams f a aaly new e B n a mve ypa f psHeean a sy e nmave aae f Geekagey s fame y a sa naave f eay an eb a eevess mnneeeneny spn fm a ey f apalsm as eaenepn an pn f e Geman Vlk. Ts nn f eay ane s aae n e s pages f "A an Revn:

Handnhand wh he dun f he Ahenan Sae mahed he dwnfalf Taged A he f ommn ef ang a huand ne f eg- leavage, wa he Gesamknswrkf Taged dnegaed n ndvd-ua fa Ave he un f ag a w head he f he mad laughe fAhane, he mae f mede ad a he e end, eve mue f A

d efe hlh wh ead wh gm men he hme un heeeng a f human engh and eau

Wagnes wn mnmena am e fm e ns fagey an eeae e Gmtknwk agans 2000 yeas f wsy peeve g a Hegean ens s s peae n a w nns n n e e n e eep pas If weve e gn selfs aeay nepaze as n s a magne w e pjeefe f e Gmtkntwkw av a sma fae An en Wagneakes a sen sep a ansaes e sa ps f e se an fa f


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44 Monumental Seduction

cuures ino a painy myhic dimenson ha poss some dsasrous endng aready in he very ac of foundaon In a key passage from The Art-work ofthe Future he compares he ruins of ragedy o he runs of heower of Babe:

Just as in the building of the Tower of Babel when their speech was confoundedand mutual understanding made impossible the nations severed from each other

each one to go its separate ay: so when a nationa solidari had pit into athousand egoistic particuarities, did the separate arts depart from the proud andheaven-soaring buiding of Drama which had lost the inspiring soul of mutuunderstanding.14

The heme of buding a new cuure and creang he ar adequae ohe comng age s aways predcaed n Wagner on desrucon and runs.The discourse of ruins is nscribed ino Wagner's projec from he begn-nng and no ony since his Schopenhaueran urn, as some woud caim.Wagnerian musc drama rses programmacay from he runs of opera,jus as he "fues ower of pure Humanlov' (a reference o Angone,Segmund and Seg nde, and Siegfred) sprang "amid he runs of ove of

sex, of parens and of sibings In a eer o Uhg of November 12, 1851,which menions he e of he projeced eraogy for he rs me, Wag-ner has hs o say abou a performance of he Ring:

I c ony conceive of performing it after the revolution only the revolution canprovide me with the artists and th audience Inevitably the next revolution mustbring an end to our whole theater business The theaters must and will all colapsethis is unavoidable

From their ruins I wil then call up what I need only then wil I nd whatI need. I shall erect a theatre on the bank of the Rhine and issue inviations to agreat dramatic festiv Mter a year's preparation, I shall produce my completework in the course of four days. With this production I wil then convey the

meaning of this revolution in its noblest sense to the people of the evoution.This audience will understand me; the current audience is unabe to.16

Thus n ae 1851, ess han a monh before Lous Napoon's 8h Bru-maire, Wagner magnes he fuure as a Bonaparis aeshec pusch acedwh Bakunnan anarchs desre and reacionary German popusm. Jusas Louis Napoon camed he mane of hs grea unce, Wagner's ambiion was o be perceved as a successor o he wo owering arss of heprecedng period Goehe and Beehoven. Bu his reveas precsey he de

Monumental Seduction 45

sre for monumenalty, a monumenay characerzed by an nense nferory compex oward hese predecessors whose achievemens Wagner ofen despared of machng. Thomas Mann spoke eoqueny of Wagnersar as of a "monumenaed . . . dieanism. 7 Bu conray o he monumena works of eher Goehe or Beehoven, Faust and he Ninth Sym

phony respecivey, Wagners fanasies of he fuure are aways predcaed

on deah, desrucon, and disaser, boh in hs heoreica wrings and nhs musc dramas. The new word promised by Segfred woud rse fromhe runs of Vahaa, runs of a case of he dead o begin wih: archecure as bura se and memora of heoic deah or faure sandng a bohhe begnnng and he ending of me . The key funcon of hs vson ofmonumenliy emerges here guaranees he presence of he dead wih-ou whose sacrice here can be no new cuure. The emov of archiecure in runs provides myhc cosure o Wagner's romanic ques: wha sbeng bu s aways aready a omb a memora o faure and dsaser.Wagner's anpahy oward he monumena as casscs norm s groundedin hs maging he monumena as rn ony, for ony runs have perma

nence. This is where a nineeenhcenuy dscourse of he monumen asruin mees wih Aber Speer's ruin heoy of archiecure, whch had heexpress inen o bud n such a way ha he greaness of he Third Reichwoud si be visibe n is runs a housand years hence I was he assage of a Romancism of runs in whch an orginay meanchoy andconempave mpuse was ransformed ino an mperalis projec o conquering me and space. Here, oo Wagner appears Janusfaced, ookingboh backard o Romancsm and forard o a voen, engung fuureThe smuaney of he desre for permanence and he anicpaon of desrucon s remniscen of Eas Cane s reecion on Her's hesaonover wheher or no o desroy Pars. In Mases and Power, Cane readHiers diemma as he wofod degh n permanence and desruconcharacerisc of he paranoac Of course, Wagner saw himsef as he"penpoenay of down, and n anoher eer o Uhg of Ocober22 1850, shory aer pubshng "Judaism in Music he wroe "In oacam and wihou any hoa I assure you ha he ony revouon I beevein s he one ha begins wh he bunng down ofParis 9

n he end Paris ws no burned, no even by he Nazs Bu he Ger-man sae has coapsed four mes in one cenury And ye, forunaey, henew monumena cuure Wagner inended o found wih his musc dra


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Monumnl Sucon

on he rns of he sae never arrve nor he new Asophanes whowo s ng an aghng aop he rns ofWagners Gmkunwrk.Insea Bareh as an exempar seor of he nernaona opera ns-r s we an ave We have he Ring ofh Niblungas a om book anhe programnoe esrpon of a 980s Me proon as lls on hRhin. We ma no nee anoher Arsophanes an ha ma be js as

we

B wha hen of he monmena oa? Or own wa of enongan aeshes of monmenaf we an brng orseves o am ha nsome forms he monmen an be enoe an ms no be reee aa ossseems o me aeqae emboe n Chrsos wrappng of heRehsag: a monmena ha an o who permanene an whoesron one ha s namen nforme b he moerns spr ofa eeng an ranso epphan b ha s no ess memorabe or mon-

mena for The proes monmena was ha of a grea raeven ssemnae an memorae b he mea an even ha wasmonmen an anmonmen a he same me B he Chrso pro-e was an ar even a noma nsaaon I was no esgne as permanen b spae b raher as s empora ssoon Ths s ee-braon begs he qeson of wheher a monmena arhere spossbe oa or even esrabe

Ths brngs me o a na reeon ha opens p anoher se of qes-ons nheren n Chrsos proe an mporan o he sse of monmen n or re In 94 n New York he paner ernan Lgerhe arhe an own panner os Ls er an he hsoran egfre

Geeon ae for a new monmena n arhere. In her onahore programma saemen ene Nne Pons on Monmen- he arge agans he pseomonmen of he nneeenh en-r as mh as agans he pre nonasm of he Bahas an he In-ernaona e Ther heses are nforme b he emora onvonha here s a egmae esre for monmen pb spae Monmensare seen as expressng he hghes ra nees of a peope an hs heahors amen he evaon of monmena whn moernsm To-a her manfeso reas ke a ash aemp o rensrbe a emo

Monumnl Sucon 47

ra monmenay no he moerns proe an mpes ha an behsore as beongng sqare whn he New De era The fa has rheor now sons hoow s esmon o he frher ene of monmena pb spae n he pas eaes. Neher Rem Koohaass reenrmphsm of exra arge n hs book SMwh s eebraon of bg-ness n pannng nor he few sess new pb monmens sh

as he Venam Memor n Washngon an he he fa ha we arewang n van for he resrreon of a pb monmena Perhapshe wrappng of he Rehsag whh an now be seen on n repro-be mea mages on posars Tshrs oee ps an he Inernes smpoma of he fae of he monmena n or posmoern mes has mgrae from he re no he mge from he maera no he mmaera an mae no he ge omper bank

so ofen n mea po s he Nas ha he rgh nsn whenhe masssrbe mages of peer's moes n he form of posarsThe monmena ee of arhere o s as eas perhaps evenbeer be aheve sa b a hghange oang imgof arhere

o nee even o b he rea hng. or ears afer he war man Ger-mans msaken beeve ha peer's Bern proes ha aa beenb an hen esroe n he as sages of he war

Ths an some ears aer or own monmen seon mabe no onger e p wh rea b spae a a eran no wh hemammoh shoppng mas n he me of nowhere nor wh nerna-on arpors an her mass raon of peope an ommoes bohof whh are phsa nope &om he raona se of pb paehe vng No woner hen ha some w ook for he n pbspae on he Inerne or ve own monmena seon ha hos hepromse of onqerng boh me an sae an ha gves new meanng o

MLhan's phanasm of an eerona ne goba re Mon-mena oa ma a be n berspae an he nformaon hghwaThe Germans a an rae n seamess an obvos onn wh anoher monmena Na proehe bng of he Aobahna Infobahn an Deshe Teekom n a reen a n he Nw rk Timshas esrbe who hesaon as he fas ane o he fre Monmena s ave an we We ma n fa have o onser a monmen-a of mnaraon for he wor we web s n prnpe he mosggan nerakng of or age as promsng o some an hreaenng o


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48 Monumntl Suction

oter a any monmentalm a eer been Sgncantly oweer, teelekom a cannot o wtot a natonal monment: t ent te Bran-enbrg Gate a a traemark for mae n Germany Weter te nformato trfc to te ftre wl be n te fat ane o r weter t wll generate bra am on a monmenta cae reman to be een

Only te ftre wl tel weter t wa wort beng ece

The Void of Bein

gt year aer te fal of te Wl een year after te ncatonof at an Wet Germany, an jt a coe of year before te natranfer of te natona goernment from Bonn to te cy on te SreeBern a cty tet frantcay beng wtten an rewrtten Berln aeft ben t eroc an roagantc ole a a ont of te olWar an trggle to magne telf a te new catal of a rente natonte cty a become ometng lke a rm trog wc we can foc e of contemorary rbanm an arctectre natonal enty antateoo torcal memory an forgettng Arctectre away beeneely nete n te ang of oltcl an natonal entte an tereblng of Berln catal of Germny ge gncant cle to tetate of te German naton aer te fal of te Wal an abot te way t

roject t ftre a lterary crtc I am natraly attracte to e noton of te cy a

tet of reang a cy a a conglomeraton of gn Mn of taoavno maeoly ggete Inviibl Citi, we know ow real anmagnary ace commngle n te mn to ae or noton of ecccte. No matter were we begn or con of te cy of gnweter wt Vctor Hgo reang Pa n Nor m Pri a a bookwrtten n tone wt e Dbn' attemt, n Brn An to


31/94


32/94

52 Th Vi ofBli

FIG -1 Philip Johnson Haus ner former Checkpoin Charlie (1996) Phoo auhor.

cnuy d gby a muc on vb ma o bu pac aon mag and mmo pd and upud by aumac vn. Papamp pa rblock, Bn now nd n a nzy o upocon and n n w gna mmoa obon o 1990n md o quay nn dba abou ow o ngoa Naz andcommun pa now a a dcoom o Cod Wa avvand. T cy obd w accua and pannng u a dba a ncon a pm acng pa o uban dvopmn a un o cnuy. o n md o a govnmnand copoaonun budng boom o uy monumna popoon.Nong goa an o ca capa o wn cnury bu von nd pny aund by pa.

Bn a man and omo oca x mad amuc no mo by abnc a by vb pnc o pa ompomnn un uc a dcnc a nd o amouKundamm o Wod Wa I bu and apn ma n many o budng. wa n mon a coap o Ea mana a ou nby o pa o cy w pap mo acu a

Th Vis ofBrli 53

IG Forer Checkpoin Charie wh imiaion Saue o f Libery ( 1995) .Courey Eisabeh Feicella.

cy a o o ong ad ood n dad y o om o poc n cnuy. Emp wa and vouon dmocacy acm anmand Cod Wa a w payd ou . ndby cd no oummory da o Bn a capa o a dconnuou upudory o coap o ou uccv man a Bn a goundo ary ponm and vo agan od od Brn a pcn o vban cuua avangadm oWma and mnaonby Nam Bn a command cn o wod wa and ooau;and nay Bn a ymboc pac o EaW cononaon o nuca ag w mcan and ov an ang a o down aCcpon Car wc now bng und no an cn buncn wacd ov mpoay by a owng poogapc cuo oPp Jonon and a unn gdd au o Lby pacd aop om Ea an wacow

a a conng and xaang m a o WaBn md auad w mmo ya nc n av aoaug u mup on abou po c o wu ong mpod and on py namng o n Ea Bn a w gvn


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Th V fBrl

a ther resoast and oen dededy antsoalst ast the dsman-tng of monuments to soasm the asurd deate aout tearng donthe DRs Paae of the Reu to mae room for a reudng of theHohenzoern aae and so forth. Ths as not just tnerng th theommunst ty text. It as a strategy of oer and humaton a naurst of Cod War deoog ursued va a ots of sgns muh of thoy unneessary and th redtae o ta faout n an ast er-man ouaton that fet nreasngy derved of ts fe hstory and of tsmemores of four deades of searate deveoment. ven though not athe ans to dsmante monuments nd to rename streets ame to frutonthe damage as done. DR nostalga and an usurge n ouarty for therevamed Communst Party (PDS ere the nevtae ota resutseven among many n the younger generaton ho had een atve n theooston to the state n the 98s

orgettng s equay rveged n an oal ad amagn of 996 t-eray rtten al over the ty ERIN WRD-ERN ECOMS. But eomes hat Instead of a roer oj et e get a veral vod. Ths hras-ng may reet se reauton for n the urrent haos of uannng adoor shemng and ontradtory otng th manyarhtetural deveoments (Sreense and Aexanderatz among themst hangng n the ar and ther feas and nanng nseure noodyseems to no exaty hat Bern eome. But the otmst su textof the ess s qute ear and raday oosed to Kar Sheers 90ament that t s the trag destny of Bern forever to eome and neverto e. Too muh of the urrent onstruton and annng atuay asthe very dynamsm and energy of turnoftheentur Bern that Sheerever the utural essmst amented Sne muh of entra Bern n themd990s s a ggant onstruon ste a hoe n the ground a vodthere are ame reasons to emhasze the vod rather than to eerateBerns urrent state of eomng.

The noton of Bern as a vod s more than a metahor and t s notjust a transtory ondton. It does ary hstora onnotatons. Already n935 the Marxst hosoher Ernst Boh n hs Erbch r Zt de-sred fe n Wemar Bern as ntons n a vod He as referrng tothe vauum e y the oase of an earer nneteenthentuy ourgeos

Th V fBi 55

uture hh had found ts satal eresson n the heavy ornamentalstone arhteture of Berns unque aartment udngs the ejoratveyaed Mtkr (rent arras th ther mute ngs n the ather soaed Htrhrenosng nner ourtyards aesse from thestreet ony through tunnee arhays. The ostWord War I vauumas ed y a funtonalst and to Boh nsustanta uture of dstra-ton: Wemar modernsm the move aes the sxday ye raes thene modernst arhteture the gtz and gamour of the soaled stazaton hase efore the 1929 ra sh Bohs hrase funtons n the vodaso artuated the nsght that n the age of monooy atasm utty sae oud no onger ommand the reresentatve funtons of anearer age As Breht ut t n those same years hen he dsussed theneed for a ne ostmmet reasm reay tsef had eome ntonathus requrng entrey ne modes of reresentaton.

A tte over a deade ater t as e to fssm to transform Bernnto the tera vod that as the andsae of runs of 194. Esealy nthe ener ofBern Br tsh and Ameran omers had joned fores thAert Seers reng rs to reate a taua rasa for ermana the renamed ata of a vtorous Reh. d the reaton of vods dd not stothen; t ontnued through the 950s under the headng of Srghen entre quarters of the od Bern ere razed to mae room for thesmst versons of modern arhteure and annng araterst ofthe tmes The major onstruton rojet of the ostar erod the Waneeded another vod that of the nomansand and the mneeds thatound ter ay through the very enter of the and hed ts Wesernart n a tght emrae

of West Bern tsef alays aeared as a vod on Eastern uro-ean mas: West Bern of the Cod War as the hoe n the astern uro-ean heese. Lese eather mas on West erman teevson for a ongtme reresented the DR as an asene a an sae surroundng therontstadt Bern the atalst heese n the rea exstng vod.

When the Wa ame don Bern added another hater to ts narratve of vods a hater that rought a shados of the ast andsoo revenants. or a oue of years ths very enter of Bern thethreshod eteen the Eastern and the Western arts of the ty as aseventeenare asteand that extended from the Brandenurg ate donto Potsdamer and Lezger Patz a de streth of drt grass nd remnants of former avement under a g sy tat seemed even gger gven


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The Vid of Berlin

FIGUR J.3 Wall area between Lepziger Patz and Brandenburg Gate CortesyArchitecture Slide Library Coumbia Uniersity

the absence of any highrise skyline so characteristic of this ciy. Berlinerscalled it aectionately their "wonderful ciy steppes, their prairie of histoy 5 It was a haunting space crisscrossed by a maze of footpahs goingnowhere One slight elevation marked the remnants of the bunker ofHitler's SS guard which aer havng been reopened once the Wall camedown was soon sealed shut again by the city authorities to avoid making itinto a site of noNazi pilgrimage Walking across this space that had beena mined noman'sland framed by he Wall and that now seed occasion-aly as a staging si te for rock concerts and other transitory cultural attrac

IGU 3·4 bert Speer North-South s Model Courtesy Archtecture SdeLibrary, Columbia Unversity.


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Th Vis fBrlin

FU 3 5 Instltion in he oid le y he dismnling o he Wl (99 1)Phoo: uhor

on I co no hep eeeng ha h aa aa ha once eenhe e o He Rechkanze an he pace o e occpe Speeegaoanac nohoh ax wh he Gea Ha n he noh anHe pha ach n he oh he powe cene o he epe o ahoan ea a o e copee 9.

In he e o 99 when o o he Wa ha aea een eoe acone o o o o o n an pece he aea wae w he Wa ee o e he Murspcht he wa peke an ecoae wh coo anga pape eae ha wee owngan ng n he wn he powe ake he o a econ nae an a eoa.

The naaon nceae he ncann eeng: a o aae whne hoy wh eoe o achece oh an n gae e o he ee o eae a wa he eoa a epy page ghn he cene o he ene cy he cene ha wa an awa ha eena he ae e he e heho eween he eaen an wee pao he cy he pace ha now n e anohe ae o gncaon eee

Th Vi fBrlin 9

to be caed upon to represent the invisibe wal in the head" that stil sep

arated East and West Germans and that was antcpated b the novelist Pe

ter Schneder long before the actual wa came down. 6

Snce hen, he rebdng o h ep cener o Bern ha becoe

a ajor oc o a dcon abo he Berin o oorrow. Wih he new

goernen qarer in he bend o he er Spree nex o he Rechag in

the north and the corporate developments at Potsdamer and Lepzger Patz

at the southern end of this space Bern wi indeed gan a new center of corporae and goernena power

But how mportant should the ciy center be for the ctes of the fu-

ture? After al the city as center and the centered city are themselves in

question toda Bernard Tschum puts it wel when he asks,

FIG 3 6 Posdmer Pltz round 193 0 Couresy Arhieure Slde LrryCoum Unersy.


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6o Th Vid ofBrlin

ho an rchiecture whose histoi role was to geneate he appence of s-be Images (monuments ode et. deal with tody's culture of the dispeanceof unstable images (twenyfouimageperseond cnem, video nd omputegeneted imges)?

For some world wide web surfers and virual ciy aneurs, he buil ciy iself has become obsolee. Ohers, however, lke Saskia Sassen he New

York urbanis o r Dieer HomannAxhelm, a wellknown Berlin archi-ecure criic, have argued persuasively ha i is precisely he growh ofglobal elecommunicaions and he poenial dispersal of populaion andresources ha have creaed a new logic for concenraion in wha Sassencalls he global city. Indeed, he ciy as cener is far from becoming obsolee Bu as a cener, he ciy is increasingly aeced and srucured by ourculure of media images. In he move from he ciy as regional or naionalcener of producion o he ciy as inernaional cener of communicaionsmedia, and serices, he very image of he ciy iself becomes cenral o i�success in a globally compeiive world. From New Yorks new TimesSquare wih is culure indusry gians Disney and Berelsmann and wih

is ecsasies of ashing commercial signage, o Berlins new PosdamerPlaz, wih Sony, Mercedes, and Brown Boveri, visibiliy equals success.

No surrisigly, hen, he maor concern wih developing and re-

buldng key es he hear o Berlin seems o be image raher han us-age, a�r�civeness for ou:is

s and ofcial visiors raher han heeroge

neous lvg space for Berl s inhabians, erasure of memory raher hanis imaginaive preservaion. The new archiecure is o enhance he desired image of Berlin as capial and global meropolis of he wenyrscenury, as a hub between Easern and Wesern Europe, and as a cener ofcorporae presence, however limied ha presence may in he end urn ouo be. Bu ironically, he concern wih Belins image, foremo on he

minds of poliicians who desire nohing so much as o increase Berlin'sabiliy o arac corporaions and ouri ss, clshes wih wha I would de-scribe as he fear of an archiecure of images.

IV

This ension has produced a very sharp debae in which he balelines are rmly enrenched beween he defenders of a naional radiionand he advocaes of a conemporry highech global archiecure. The

Th Vid ofen 61

radiionaliss champion a local and naionl concep of urban culure hahey call "criical reconsrucion. Is represenaives, such as Hans Sm-mann, he ciy's direcor of building from 99 o 996, and Vicor Lam-pugnani, former direcor of Frankfurs Museum of Achiecure, cal for anew smpliciy ha seems o aim a a mix of Karl Friedrich Schinkels cs-sicism and Peer Behrens's once daing modernism, wih Heinrichessenow as a moderae modernis hrown in o secure an aniavan-gardis and aiWeimar poliics of radiionlism. Berlin mus be Berlin,hey say. Ideniy is a sake Bu his desired idenity is sympomaicallydominaed by preWorld War I archiecure, he Mitkasrn and he no-ion of he once again popular radiional neighborhood, aecionaelycalled he Kiz. In he lae 970s, he Kiz emerged as counerculure inrundown, closeoheWall quarers like Kreuzberg where squaers oc-cupied and resored decaying housing sock. In he 980s , i was embracedby he city's mainsream preseraion eors Now, i dicaes key parame-ers of he new archiecural conseaism. Forgoen are he archiecurland planning experimens of he 920s, he grea Berlin esaes of MarinWagne and Bruno Tau. Forgoen or raher repressed is he archiecure

of he azi period, of which Berlin, afer all, sill harbors signican examples from he Olympic Sadium o Gring's aviaion minisry nearLeipziger Plaz. Ignored and o be quicky forgoen is he archiecure ofhe GDR, which many would us like o commi in is enirey o hewrecking ballfrom he Stalinalall he way o saellie housing projecslike Marzahn or Hohenschnhausen. Wha we have insead is a srangemix of an originaly lefis Kiz romanicism and a nineeenhcenuy vision of he neighborhood divided ino small parcels, as if such srucurescould become prescripive for he rebuilding of he ci as a whole Buhis is precisely wha bureaucras like Hans Simmann and heoriss likeDieer HomannAxhelm have in mind wih criical reconsrucion Pre-

scripions such as ciy block building radiional window facades a uni-form heigh of twenywo meers (he riualisically invoked aujoh),and bilding in sone are vociferously defended agains all evidence hasuch adiionalism is wholly imaginay. Building in sone, indeed, a aime when he mos sone you'd ge is a hin sone veneer covering heconcree skeleon underneah.

There is no much of ineres o say abou he oher, he corporaeside, of he debae Here we have inernaional high ech, facade ecsasy,


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62 The i ofBein

pefeence fo mosly anal hghses an oos of compuegeneaemagey o convnce us ha we nee o go wh he fuue. Bu hs -choomy of Sone Age vs. cye age s msleang: he gh s ove magean mage alone on oh ses of he ssue. The new naonally coe smplcy s us as mageven as he mage ecsases of he hghech campexcep ha poss anal mages of a naonal pas agans equally anal

mages of a gloa fuue. The ea Beln of oay s concs an aspaons emans a vo n a eae ha lacks magnaon an vson.Take Hans Smmann an Vco Lampugnan. Lampugnan sap

poves of easy pcues . supecal sensaon . . omene lghness . . . wl gowh . . . nosy new nepeaon. Smmann n unpoess ha "Leanng fom Las Vegas s ou of place n a cena Euopean cy a pogammac saemen as much ece agans posmoensm n achecue as s qe laanly anAmecan n he aonof consevave eman Kuii. Bu hs aack on a wenyveyeaol founng ex of posmoen achecue an s epue magepolcs s sangely ou of place an ou of me. Las Vegas posmoensmhas een efunc fo some me an nooy has eve suggese a Belnshoul ecome casno cy. The hen oec of Smmanns moazngpoes s Wema Beln. Fo Beln n he 920s we mus ememe ene s moeny as qunessenally Amecan Beln as a "Chcagoon he Spee an as such ffeen fom ole Euopean capas an ffeen also fom he Beln of he Wlhelman Empe The emace ofAmeca was an emace of pagmac echnologcl moeny funconalsm mass culue an emocacy. Ameca hen offee mages of henew u memoes of Wema achecueEch Menelsohn Waleopus an he Bauhaus Buno Tau Man Wagne Hannes MeyeMes van e Rohesmply o no gue n he cuen eaes aou achecue n Beln. In he anmoensm he consevaves hemselveshave gone posmoen . Small wone hen ha Smmann's pefeence focc econsucon s self pmaly concene wh mage an avesng he mage of ul space ceang a sense of aona enyfo Beln whose vos mus e lle an he moe nangle ye economcally ecsve nena ona mage of he cy n an age of gloal sevce economes uan ousm culual compeon an new concenaons of wealh an powe. Bu he ese mage s ecely pe914.The ccal econsuconss fanasze aou a secon Gndeei

The ids ofBein

GU 3 oame az oso se wh NFO BOX 995). CoesyEisaeh Feea

gous to the founing years of the Secon Reich aer the Franco-Prussian

War Never mind that the gold rush of the rst Gronderzeit quickly col-

lapsed with he crash of 1873 and the beginning of a longterm depression.

The issue in central Berlin, to use Venturi/Scott Brown/Izenour's by

now classical postmoern terms from Learning fom as Vgas in this ver

dierent context is about how best to decorate the corporate and govern

mental sheds to better attract international attention: not he ciy as mul

tiply coded text to be lled with life by its dwellers and its readers butt�e

city as image and design in the seice of displaying power and prot Ths

underlying goal has paradigmaticaly come to fruition in a project on

Leipziger Platz called INFO B OX a huge red box on blac stilts with windo:

fronts several stories high and with an openair roof terrace for panoamc

vewng.This NFO B OX, attraction to some ve thousand visitors per day, was

built n 995 as a temporay installation to serve as a viewing sit ono the

construction wasteland studded with building cranes hat surrounds it

With its multimedia walls, sound rooms, and interactive computers, it


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The i ofBein

seres as an exbton and advertsng ste for te corporate developmentsby Meredes Sony and te A+ T Investment Grop on Lepger andotsdamer lat cyber aner n "Vrtal Berln 2002," yo can enoy aytrog trog a compter smlaton of te new otsdamer andLepger lat developments or arrve by ICE at te tre Lerter Bano£ Yo can watc te constrton ste on a wraparond ampeatrcalscreen nsde wle lstenng to an anmated Dsneyed Berln sparrow de-lver te prod narratve cast n a yply streetsmart slgty lowerclassBern ntonaton Or yo can admre plater casts of te maor arctectste lt of te master blder s alve and well as smlarm al te moreso as arctects ave become mere appendages n today s word of rban de-velopment More mage box tan nfo box ts spae oers te ltmateparadgm o

andreas huyssen present pasts.pdf

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