Abstract
This article analyses the dynamics of communication, specifically with regard to the significance of visualisations in urban planning between the two competing political regimes of East and West Germany in divided Berlin (1945–1989). The article will demonstrate the ways in which planners on either side of the Iron Curtain were confronted with matters unique to their own political contexts and conditions for public communication, as well as how they faced similar challenges in fields of urban renewal and negotiating public participation. The post-war decades in Berlin were marked by strong planning dynamics: large-scale reconstruction after WWII and the ‘showcase character’ of political confrontation and competition. In this context, new strategies of communicating urban planning to the public were developed, such as large-scale development plans, public exhibitions and cross-border media campaigns. Paradigmatic shifts during the mid-1970s generated new discourses about urban renewal and historic preservation. The new focus on small-scale planning in vivid and inhabited inner-city neighbourhoods made new forms of communication and public depiction necessary. In the context of social and political change as well as growing mediatisation, planning authorities utilised aspects of urban identity and civic participation to legitimise planning activities. The article traces two small-scale planning projects for neighbourhoods in East and West Berlin and investigates the interrelation of visual communication instruments in public discourses and planning procedures during the 1980s, a period that prominently featured the new strategy of comprehensive planning. Furthermore, the article highlights the key role of micro-scale changes in the management of urban renewal along both sides of the wall and the emergence of neighbourhood civil engagement and participation.
Highlights
This article examines the transformation of communicative strategies and visual instruments in urban planning over a long-term, historical perspective in order to contribute a more comprehensive understanding of the ongoing transition of “cities on paper” (Lee & Weiß, 2019) to a digital planning culture while set against the back-Urban Planning, 2020, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 10–23 ground of major transformations over the course of the 20th century
The study examines the usage of several media varieties, from sketches and wallpapers to posters in projects of urban planning on both sides of the Wall; all of which is further embedded within an overarching analysis of the socio-political context of urban planning in East and West Berlin during the Cold War (Warnke, 2009)
This article examined the crucial role that innovative strategies of communication and visualisation were playing during the changing culture of urban planning that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s
Summary
This article examines the transformation of communicative strategies and visual instruments in urban planning over a long-term, historical perspective in order to contribute a more comprehensive understanding of the ongoing transition of “cities on paper” (Lee & Weiß, 2019) to a digital planning culture while set against the back-. Urban Planning, 2020, Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 10–23 ground of major transformations over the course of the 20th century It focuses on the emergence of new communicative and visual practices in urban planning in divided post-war Berlin while paying special attention to the 1970s and 1980s. Freestone’s remark addresses the exhibition as a new communicative instrument in urban planning, the various types of visualisations, and the planners’ practices (“toolkit”) He localises these key components of ‘mediatisation’ (Krotz, 2007) in urban planning within the specific historical context of 1910, in which this distinctive type of visual communication emerged for the first time (Bodenschatz & Kress, 2017). Exploring this set of questions for both political systems provides a cross-cultural analysis of emergent patterns of visualisation and communication in urban planning during the late 20th century from an East-West comparative perspective. The position of individual actor groups will be analysed to provide information about questions initially raised about communication relations and decision making
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