In the end, the new Molkenmarkt in Berlin should only be a bit reminiscent of the old one: on Tuesday, after lengthy debates, the Senate decided on a so-called framework plan for the redevelopment of one of the oldest areas in the city. A densely built-up district is to be created on the back of the Red Town Hall, where streets and open spaces have been since the houses were demolished in the post-war period. Most recently, there has been a dispute as to whether this should be done in forms that are more or less vaguely related to the situation before the war, or in forms that can be freed from such historical considerations. Because what may sound like questions of aesthetic preferences to foreigners are ultimately more political and economic.
In view of the different positions in this dispute, which has been going on for years, the decision that Urban Development Senator Christian Gaebler of the SPD has now announced sounds very much like efforts and compromises and middle ground: 450 apartments are to be built there, most of them by municipal companies. In part – but not exclusively, as is specifically emphasized – “small-scale development” is planned. A “historical reconstruction” is expressly not planned, “but rather a current interpretation”. On the basis of this framework plan, a “design handbook” will be presented next year, with which the concrete plans can then be tackled and construction can begin from 2026. There should also be no lack of trade, green spaces and above all culture.
It’s also about whether the city can be fragmented again – or affordable
Those who know the history can also read an offer of peace to the critics of the Senate Building Director Petra Kahlfeldt, who recently has often been accused of trying to turn the procedure in favor of the friends of the historian. The core of the apparently aesthetic questions is not insignificant, whether in this part of the city the dimensions of the old plots should be largely rebuilt in order to regain the much-vaunted “small-scale” character of the old city. Whether in modern or historical architectural forms is actually secondary, because that would tend to be demanded by private builders and result in corresponding apartment prices – or whether the much-vaunted “affordable” living space, i.e. kept below the galloping market prices if possible, should be created here with cooperative or municipal sponsors can be. This, in turn, requires building structures that have more in common with the large blocks of flats of modernism than with narrow patrician houses.
During the interregnum of the Left Party, the building department leaned more towards the latter attitude, while during the social-democrat-dominated phases it leaned towards the former attitude. Unfortunately, the results of the privately financed small-scale simulations so far have not been able to convince everyone stylistically, but have caused a lot of new disputes about tendencies towards social homogenization. In the end, even discord broke out in the camp of the historians themselves. After Benedikt Goebel, urban researcher and activist for historical reconstruction, had polemicized against the dominance of poorer classes in the city center, Annette Ahme, chairwoman of the Berliner Historische Mitte association, vehemently contradicted him and called for a “centre for the little people”, including housing quotas for refugees.
It could well be that the compromise attempt in the framework plan will ultimately find grudging acceptance at best on all sides involved. But in the meantime, new areas of conflict have long been waiting. On the other side of the Red Town Hall, the question is whether a new Berlin old town should be built here or whether the programmatic open space from the historical layer of the GDR should be preserved, which, in addition to historical awareness, also speaks for the need for greenery in the city center. Both sides have already positioned themselves in the media. However, it is also a tricky question for supporters of modernism when, because of the lack of living space, there is even pressure to build on the Tempelhofer Feld, which historically was a parade ground and is now used exactly as such again by many Berliners on weekends, only that it is now Carry coffee mugs in front of you instead of shotguns.
Historicizing volts are just being beaten a lot in the city. The fact that plans for an Olympic bid are suddenly back in the discussion only sounds astonishing at first, but more logically at second. Ironically, it should be the games from ’36 again, a hundred years later again. But maybe that would be a reason for many in Berlin to get the “No Olympic City” banners from the early nineties out of the basement again. This movement, too, could then insist on its own historical restoration. Especially since she was one of the few in Berlin to be extremely successful with something.