Urban renewal at a turning point
The aim of the joint project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is to record the significance of the decay of the old town in the GDR, to explain its effect on the genesis of the citizens' movements as a major driving force behind the social change in 1989 and to reclassify and evaluate urban development policy after German reunification.
With the sub-project "German-German exchange of expertise and effects after reunification", the Chair of Urban Planning is working on the East-West transfer in urban renewal before 1989, the developments during the reunification period and the long-term effects of innovations in planning instruments after reunification. Using comprehensive archive and literature research and more than 15 qualitative expert interviews, the East-West contacts of experts on urban renewal from the 1970s to the 1990s are examined. In addition to archives with GDR holdings such as the Scientific Collections of the IRS in Erkner and the Federal Archives, research is also being conducted in university and city archives. As a result of the research and interviews, the influence of the exchange of expertise on urban renewal instruments and the changes in planning and redevelopment law in the late GDR and in unified Germany from 1990 onwards will be evaluated. Changes in planning law, particularly in spring 1990 (BauZVO) and their feedback into planning law and redevelopment law after the unification of Germany on October 3, 1990 are the focus of the research.
The results of the four-year research project were published on September 22, 2022 with the book on the research project by Ch. Links Verlag, co-edited by Detlef Kurth and Jana Breßler:
Breßler et. al. (eds.) (2022): Urban turnaround. Civic Engagement and Old Town Renewal in the GDR and East Germany. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. https://www.aufbau-verlage.de/ch-links-verlag/stadtwende/978-3-96289-163-3
Since October 2021, the research topics have been presented in a traveling exhibition in selected cities in East Germany. The exhibition has so far been shown in Brandenburg an der Havel, Stralsund, Erfurt, Halle and Schwerin. The next exhibition venues are:
- Potsdam, Potsdam Museum, December 5, 2022 to February 12, 2023
- Dessau, in March 2023
- Weimar, May to July 2023
- Berlin, Pankow District Museum, July 13, 2023 to August 24, 2023
Research team:
RPTU, Chair of Urban Planning, Department of Spatial and Environmental Planning
Prof. Dr. Detlef Kurth
Jana Breßler, M.A.
Project partner:
RPTU, research group for urban redevelopment and urban renewal
University of Kassel
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research, Historical Research Center
Funding:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Duration:
01/2019-04/2023
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