Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
69
The Exhibition of Communist Objects and Symbols in Berlin’s Urban
Landscape as Alternative Narratives of the Communist Past
Marie Hocquet
(Centre Max Weber, Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne)
The objective of this article is to investigate the different approaches at play in the material and symbolic
production of the urban space through the study of the transformations of the East-Berlin urban landscape since
the German reunification. I will show how the official accounts of the ex-GDR have crystallised in the Berlin
urban space through the construction of a negative heritage. I will then focus on how the increase in historic
tourism in the capital has contributed to the emergence of legible micro-accounts related to the local communist
past in the urban space that compete with the official interpretations of this past.
Key words:
Berlin, symbolism, communism, heritage
Introduction
Urban space can be considered as a privileged place where one can observe the work of self-
definition undertaken by societies. This is because human beings take their place in a physical
environment by materialising their being-in-the-world. The urban landscape is defined by
Mariusz Czepczyński as a ‘visible and communicative media through which thoughts, ideas
and feelings, as well as powers and social constructions are represented in a space’
(Czepczyński 2010: 67).
In the process outlined above, the narrativisation of the past and its inscription in the
urban space is a phenomenon of primary importance. Our cities’ landscapes are linked to
memory in a dynamic process which constantly urges societies to visualise themselves, to
imagine the future and to represent themselves in it. Memory proceeds by simplification,
mixing or reinterpreting history, and can be considered as a sort of symbolic common fund
which supplies the materials needed to give meaning to urban landscapes. The past inscribed
in stone (the material traces referring to past times and activities) is thus reinvested according
to the issues of the present, and is ultimately used to support the construction of local,
regional or national cultural and political identities. The social practices of spatialisation of
memory – the heritagisation, the musealisation and the memorial marking of territory –
actively contribute to the semioticisation of the past (Assmann 2010). This allows us to
communicate values and visions both of the world and of the self.
The inscription of the past in the urban space can also be analysed in terms of tourism
development. Taking over old places, symbols and icons for promotional purposes contributes
to create and legitimise an image of self-identity, and is partly determined by the tourist
market. For many countries, and cities, tourism is a set of ‘highly significant means of self-
promotion to the wider international community’ (Light 2001: 1053-1054).
The exploitation of the past for political and economic reasons requires a process of
semioticisation which develops according to different approaches and on several levels. On
the level of urban government, it is carried out through the construction and care of public
spaces and buildings as well as through the creation of an image of the city. On the micro
local level, the traces and icons of the past are exploited by the city inhabitants, artists and
