Reframing Berlin investigates the concept of urban memory through the transformation and/or consistency of the built environment. These architectural changes, defined as urban strategies, range from demolition (forgetting) to memorialisation (remembering) and are shown through case studies using film locations in Berlin. 64 b/w illus.

Foreword Kathleen James-Chakraborty Introduction  Berlin: The Remembered City  Urban Memory  Urban Strategies  Memory in Berlin  Filmstadt Berlin Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Demolition  New Reich Chancellery  Palace of the Republic  Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Temporary Installation Escape Tunnels  Wrapped Reichstag  From Scratch: New Construction  Sony Center  Spreebogen  Business or Pleasure?: Disneyfication  Checkpoint Charlie  Berliner Stadtschloss  Cycle of Life: Mutation  The Berlin Wall  Potsdamer Platz  Prosthetic Limbs: Supplementation  The Reichstag Dome  Berlin Olympic Stadium  Frozen in Time: Suspension  Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church  Topography of Terror  On the Move: Relocation  Grand Hotel Esplanade  Victory Column  Survival Instinct: Adaptation  Berlin Techno Clubs  Berlin Bunkers  Altered States: Appropriation  Berlin TV Tower  Neue Wache  My Precious!: Preservation  The Brandenburg Gate  Berlin State Opera  Once upon a Time: Memorialization  Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe  Stumbling Blocks  Conclusions: Berlin: Remember When … Berlin Lessons  The Global Context  Filmography Bibliography  Index 

A study of the ways Berlin has been depicted in cinema and the ways its architectural transformations inform our understanding of the city and its memories. Concerned with the connection between the built environment and the passage of time, Reframing Berlin uses film locations in the city to reveal the influence that urban transformation has on memory-making. Covering the city’s history since the beginning of cinema, the book proposes the term urban strategies to understand the range of consequential actions taken by politicians, developers, and other powerful figures to shape the nature and future of buildings, streets, and districts. Organizing these strategies from demolition to memorialization, the authors study the ways these actions forget or recall aspects of place. Using cinematic representations of Berlin as an audiovisual archive, the study details how the city has adjusted to its traumatic twentieth-century history through architectural transformations. Two dissimilar case studies frame each strategy, indicating that an approach that works for one building may not be sufficient for another.