SYNCHRONICTY: Double Fake - Imitations at Berlin Potsdamer Platz

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Double Fake - Imitations at Berlin Potsdamer Platz

At times of the Berlinale film festival,one heads out to Berlin Potsdamer Platz quite frequently. I recently took acouple of pictures of the remains of the potemkin village in the heart ofBerlin's inner city.

The building and its fake twin. 2012. (Image by SYNCHRONICITY)

Fake building. 2012. (Image by SYNCHRONICITY)

(Image by SYNCHRONICITY)

The Potsdamer Platz and its adjacent Leipziger Platz, gotrebuilt as the new (old) downtown city center according to local urbanplanners. In order to not be too dependent on investment the city decided tobuild fake buildings instead: Huge scaffoldings dressed in banners withfacade printing anticipate what once will be. The last remaining giant is thescaffolding separating Leipziger Platz from Potsdamer Platz. Together with itstwin (an actual building) they articulate a symmetric gate seen from the oneside, and enclose the octagon of Leipziger Platz from the other side. The areagot completely destroyed during the bombings of WW II; after the Wende, Leipziger Platz got restored inplan. However many of the new buildings are reminiscent of the 1920s era. Therefore,with its huge buildings and high-rises, this part of the New Berlin imitatesNorth American downtowns such as New York or Chicago. Like in other parts of the city, current urban planning tries to imitate the image of the GoldenTwenties when Berlin was the flourishing, densely populated capital of WeimarRepublic. Only 1920sBerlin never looked like 1920s New York. Arguably the contemporary PotsdamerPlatz has an aura of a double fake: buildings that are not buildings, and new buildingsthat pretend to be old. These are conspicuous symptoms of both, the citystruggling with its past and the image the contemporary metropolis aspires tocreate.