A space for something new? Visions for the Old Market 1945–2025

FOYER

A space for something new? Visions for the Old Market 1945–2025

Introduction
No square in Potsdam has changed its appearance as much over the past 80 years as the Old Market. The historic site was destroyed in April 1945 during one of the final Allied bombing. The initial post-war plans envisaged extensive reconstruction. But the ruling SED party had other ideas: on the path to a socialist city, it cleared the square and launched design competitions. Yet new buildings did not emerge until the 1970s, with large parts of the area remaining undeveloped. The construction of the theatre, which began in 1989, was overtaken by the political upheaval – following the city council’s vote in October 1990 to return to the historic city layout, it was demolished in 1991 as too great an intrusion on the urban fabric. Over the past 35 years, this newly emerging space of possibility has been redesigned. In many places, it now resembles its historical model. 

As neighbours of the square, we look back on 80 years of urban design and share with you the various visions and voices of each era. In doing so, we highlight and contrast different perspectives. At the end of the exhibition, we would like to hear your views. How do you feel about the Old Market? What might you feel is missing? Where do you see future potential? We look forward to your comments and suggestions.

HALLWAY

The Old Market for me is …
We’re interested in getting to know your impressions of the Old Market!

The Centre of Potsdam for me is … 
Where would you find the centre of Potsdam? Is it here? Or somewhere else? Please put one of the stickers provided on the map!

STAIRCASE

The Old Market before 1945
The isometric view of the Old Market Square shows the network of streets and houses, with their courtyards and extensions, which has developed over the centuries. This intricate structure was destroyed during the bombing of the city in April 1945. In our ‘profiles’, we highlight the history of selected buildings. You can also find these and other building histories in the PotsdamHistory app.

ROOM 1

Entrance area 1945
Substructure of a rubble track, 1st half oft he 20th century

Wall to the right: a painting
Hubert Globisch, Empty Room, 1946, oil on cardboard

People’s despair over war and destruction inspired Hubert Globisch to create one of his first oil paintings. A man sits on a chair, his hands resting on the armrests; in front of him stands an empty chair – someone is missing. The walls, windows and door are crooked, out of alignment and in a state of overwhelming disarray. From an elevated perspective, the viewer is presented with a view of the scene’s utter hopelessness. Only the barely perceptible ray of light falling on a piece of paper lying on the floor and the half-open door suggest hope. 

2025 donated by the Potsdamer Kunstverein e.V. 
The restoration was possible thanks to private donations via the Förderverein des Potsdam-Museums e.V.

Text on the wall to room 1 on the left

1945–1949
Assessment of the Situation and Visions for Reconstruction _____ Urban Design in the Wake of the Destruction of the World War 1945–1949

Until the final weeks of the Second World War, Potsdam had been largely spared from bombing. Yet on the night of 14–15 April 1945, one of the last Allied carpet-bombing raids shook the city. The war, which had begun on German soil in 1939, had now reached Potsdam – with devastating consequences. For the city’s population, the first post-war year was characterised not only by the procurement of food and basic necessities but also by an assessment of the damage and the clearing of rubble from transport routes. At the same time, architects and town planners began to consider the reconstruction of the city. Many assumed this would involve restoring the old town centre. However, there were also visions for a new administrative centre located to the east. The future of the heavily damaged City Palace was a subject of debate.

Wall to the right

Assessment of the Destruction

Until the final weeks of the Second World War, Potsdam had been largely spared from bombing. But on the night of 14–15 April 1945, the city was rocked by the last Allied carpet bombing. The war that had broken out on German soil in 1939 had now reached Potsdam. As a result of the bombing and subsequent fighting, of the 1,656 buildings in the city centre, 509 were destroyed, 103 partially destroyed, 989 uninhabitable and only 55 undamaged. The destruction was also devastating around the Old Market. The interior of the City Palace lay in ruins. Artillery attacks had caused the dome of St Nicholas’ Church to collapse, and of the Old Town Hall, only the street frontage and the northern side wall remained. The Barberini Palace had also suffered severe bomb damage and had to be demolished in 1946. Little remained of the old square’s Italian-style appearance.

A record of the destroyed city centre in colour

In 1946 or 1947, Karl-Heinz Hesener, born in Düsseldorf in 1912, picked up his camera and documented the damage in Potsdam. These are extremely rare amateur photographs, as private cameras had to be handed over to the occupying forces after the war, just like cars, radios, bicycles and other equipment. The images take on particular significance because they were taken in colour. They are also records of everyday life amidst the destruction.

The Clearance of Potsdam

Since 1946, a vast number of photographs have documented the war damage, as well as the controlled demolitions of buildings in the city centre at risk of collapse and the extensive clearance work. Much of this work was carried out by the city’s population during extra working hours at weekends. The hours recorded on blue work cards were credited against food ration cards. Rubble clearance was manual labour, often carried out by women. This is where the term ‘rubble women’ comes from. But they also helped with the repair of damaged flats: in 1946, for example, Potsdam bricklayers trained an additional 100 women as construction assistants. A report on the rubble clearance in the area around the Alter Markt states that 12,000 cubic metres of rubble were cleared in 1946 between Hohewegstraße (now Friedrich-Ebert-Straße) and Heilig-Geist-Straße. For the city as a whole, the City Planning Office estimated approximately 700,000 cubic metres of rubble. Less than half of this had been cleared by 1949 – and it continued to dominate the cityscape well into the 1950s.

Archaeological finds in the large display case

Over the years, people have recovered artefacts from the ruins of the City Palace and other buildings on the Old Market – either on their own initiative or with official permission. The glass bowl, which is otherwise intact but has been warped by heat, comes from the cellar of a residential building on the Old Market. The metal plates were found by city archaeologist Richard Hoffmann in one of the buildings on the corner of Kaiserstraße and Alter Markt (now Anna-Flügge-Straße), and from the ruins of the Palasthotel on Alte Fahrt, glass drinking vessels and fragments of porcelain tableware, melted beyond recognition, were recovered. 

Front panel / wall to the left

Relief

Michael Christoph Wohler and Johann Christoph Wohler (presumed), fragment of a relief depicting the buildings at Am Alten Markt 13–14 destroyed in the war, 1795–1800, sandstone

In 1795, St Nicholas’ Church was destroyed by a fire that broke out on a building site in the tower. The fire spread to numerous town houses on the north and west sides of the Alter Markt, including the buildings at Am Alten Markt 13–14. They were rebuilt, probably based on designs by Michael Philipp Boumann, and given a shared façade. The sculptors Wohler created a frieze featuring fire-extinguishing putti for the entrance to No. 13. Only the central section has survived. A cast has been part of the artwork ‘Wa(a)gnis’, created by the Berlin artist Wolf von Waldow, on the newly constructed building of the Karl Marx 1956 housing cooperative (Am Alten Markt 6) since 2024.

Recovered from the ruins of the building after 1945 and transferred to the museum.

Drawing on behalf of the city

In June 1945, six artists from Potsdam were independently commissioned by the Potsdam City Council to document the destruction of the city centre “in order to produce the documentation required for reconstruction” (Hans-Joachim Giersberg). Those commissioned were Paul August, Walter Bullert, Hubert Globisch, Otto Heinrich, Egon von Kameke and Hans Klohss. The idea came from Otto Nagel, who was living in Rehbrücke at the time and was a co-founder of the Kulturbund. The motivation for the commission may have been, on the one hand, the fact that photographing the destruction was not fully possible or was prohibited due to the confiscation of private cameras; on the other hand, the artists commissioned were already well-known before the Second World War and were seen as key figures in rebuilding cultural life in the city. Around 100 drawings focusing on the Alter Markt and its surroundings are held in the collection of the Potsdam Museum.

The small display case contains sketchbooks by Egon von Kameke and Paul Malik featuring various scenes from the area around the Old Market, as well as drawings on parchment from a portfolio by Hans Klohss comprising a total of 26 sheets, which were acquired by the museum in 1946.

Small show case
Sketchbooks and drawings by Hans Klohss, Paul Malik and Egon von Kameke, Potsdam 1945–1950s

Wall to the exit

First vision for reconstruction – Arno Neumann

“What we are very proud of is that, during this period, we have managed to take the city’s redevelopment plans so far that we can say the planning is in place.” Arno Neumann, the city planning officer who made this announcement, had a clear vision for the reconstruction of Potsdam in 1946. According to his plans, the new administrative centre was to be built east of the Alter Markt, towards the Heiligengeistkirche. A second bridge over the Havel to Babelsberg was intended to divert traffic, relieve the old centre – which was to be rebuilt – and establish a link to Babelsberg. Neumann sadly died in a tragic accident that same year, and his plans were never realised.

The Future of the City Palace

In 1947, the architect Karl-Friedrich Demmer (1) proposed demolishing the remaining walls of the City Palace and constructing the new Mark Brandenburg State Theatre on the foundations. The new building was to rectify the palace’s sloping position and would run parallel to the buildings on Schloßstraße, forming the western boundary of the Old Market. In this design, traffic would flow from the Lange Brücke across the site of the palace, past the Nikolaikirche to the west, and into what was then Kaiserstraße. Hans Freese (2), a professor at the Technical University of Berlin, disagreed with Demmer and argued for the preservation of the palace in conjunction with a rubble wall. Freese had already been commissioned by the state government in 1946 to produce an expert report on reconstruction and suggested building a rampart in the Lustgarten, parallel to the railway line, using 100,000 cubic metres of rubble; this would be landscaped and adorned with fragments of rubble such as columns and capitals, and would open up the view of the old town and the River Havel. For the use of the City Palace, he proposed municipal or state authorities and envisaged a new theatre building on the north side of Unity Square.

The numbers in brackets refer to designs that can be found on the workshop table.

Transport issues

Particular attention was paid in the development plans to traffic management in the city centre. In practice, the Lange Brücke, which had been repaired in 1945, bore the brunt of the traffic. The town planners therefore envisaged a second large bridge between Potsdam and Babelsberg, mostly between Türk- and Lindenstraße. In many other plans, traffic ran west and east of the City Palace, with Humboldtstraße and Brauerstraße becoming major thoroughfares, as in Reinhold Mohr’s (4) design. A bold proposal by Karl Erbs (3), head of the Brandenburg State Building Authority, sought to demolish half of the City Palace to make way for traffic management. For the conservationist Friedrich Mielke, these plans primarily promoted an idea that later gained traction and ultimately led to the demolition of the palace: ‘The primacy of traffic as a political weapon’.

A Police Stadium for Potsdam

In October 1948, members of the People’s Police and volunteers began constructing the Soviet Occupation Zone’s first major sports facility on the site of the former Lustgarten in Potsdam. Amidst the initial planning for reconstruction and the accompanying debates about the future of the City Palace, this construction project created a fait accompli. Rubble was used for the spectator stands. Parts of the palace’s west wing were also demolished until the state government put a stop to this. The construction was, however, pushed forward by, amongst others, Richard Staimer, the head of the Brandenburg State Police and son-in-law of Wilhelm Pieck.

ROOM 2

Partition wall (green)

1950–1985
Transformations on the path to the socialist city____ Urban design in the GDR

“Architecture is, in a sense, the reflection of a people’s social order in every age.” This statement by Walter Ulbricht at the opening of the German Academy of Architecture in 1951 forms the basis for the SED’s political ambition: architecture should reflect socialism. Urban planning and design were therefore subject to manifold interventions by state and party bodies, which in turn were guided by directives from the Soviet Union. If these changed, GDR plans were adapted. Despite the planned economy, planning certainty was therefore out of the question. Added to this was the management of the ever-present shortage: there was a lack of labour, building materials and money. A total of seven competitions were held between 1951 and 1976 for the design of the Alter Markt – often with a changed socio-political or architectural context. The final competition concerned the design of a green space on the site of the City Palace, which had been demolished in 1960, as all previous plans had proved unfeasible. Since the late 1950s, the square had been associated with the name Karl Liebknecht as Potsdam’s central square and was thus ideologically overburdened. Below, we present some of the designs and proposals.

Front panel

Initial planning – an exhibition – a competition (Table A 1950–54 Initial planning and the central square/part 1)

By the spring of 1951, the town planning department had drawn up four planning variants (2), all of which had one thing in common: in accordance with the urban development principles (1) adopted in 1950, they focused on the required creation of a central square where rallies were to take place. One of the four options envisaged the demolition of the City Palace, whilst the others were based on its reconstruction. These four options were presented in the exhibition ‘Potsdam Plans Its Reconstruction’ (3). A city model showed the latest planning stage, in which the Marstall was divided to accommodate the junction with Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. Visitors were asked for their views on the variants, with 75% expressing support for the preservation of the cultural monuments. Following further revisions, Version IVb (4) was produced, on the basis of which the city announced a restricted competition (5) with four participants at the end of 1951. The Central Square was now planned for the area west of St Nicholas’ Church. The results of the competition were presented in 1952 at the Kulturbundhaus.

Table A 1951–1954

Designs for the City Centre 1951–1954 (1950–54 Initial planning and the central square/part 2)

The exhibition accompanying the competition sparked discussions about traffic management and the layout of the city’s central square. As city architect, Reinhold Mohr was professionally involved in these issues. However, freelance architects, the University of Architecture and the FDJ also submitted proposals.

Architect Max Müller from Potsdam, for example, had a new bridge over the Havel ending behind the Old Town Hall, so that the Old and New Market Squares were relieved of traffic as a historical unit. The plan submitted by the FDJ, on the other hand, envisaged a swimming pool instead of the Neptune Fountain; the City Palace had been demolished and a huge demonstration square stretched southwards parallel to the city canal. Many designs envisaged the Platz der Einheit as a central rallying point – such as the plans by Berghoff, Kretschmann and Mohr.

Base: Photo album: Richard Hoffmann – Excavations at the City Palace from 1950 onwards

From 1950 onwards, Richard Hoffmann carried out several surveys of the City Palace ruins and the surrounding area on behalf of the Local History Museum. As in other cities, it was the destruction of the building that had made archaeological excavations possible in the first place. Hoffmann laid the foundations for research into the City Palace’s predecessor buildings, even though he was mistaken on one crucial detail: there had never been a medieval castle on this site. The oldest building known today dates from the 16th century. Archaeologists were able to confirm this in the 2000s when they re-examined the findings on site.

Table B 

A shift towards the socialist city 

The death of Joseph Stalin and the resulting changes in the Soviet Union also had an impact in the GDR: the first Construction Conference in April 1955 and the 33rd session of the Central Committee (CC) of the SED in October 1957 resolved to industrialise construction, particularly housing construction in city centres, as a symbol of socialism. This was linked to the stipulation that old buildings should only be rebuilt if a new construction would incur higher costs. As a result of this change of course, a competition for the city centre in Potsdam had to be re-advertised three times in 1957/1958. It ultimately yielded no result because the fate of the City Palace remained undecided. With a view to building the socialist city, the Potsdam district leadership of the SED was already discussing the demolition of the City Palace and the creation of a central square to be named after Karl Liebknecht as early as November 1958. Liebknecht had won the so-called ‘Imperial Constituency’ of Potsdam-Spandau-Osthavelland in the 1912 Reichstag elections and was now being exploited for propaganda purposes to promote a working-class tradition in Potsdam. The Ministry of Culture’s objection to the demolition of the palace delayed these efforts only slightly. Designs from the Weimar and Dresden universities featuring the City Palace (1) were no longer discussed. Designs without the City Palace (central risalit [2], Schmidt/Kluge [3]) became more numerous. In May 1959, the Politburo finally decided on the demolition. Attempts to save the building, including those by Friedrich Mielke, the historic preservation authorities (Claushen) (4) and architects such as Günther Vandenhertz (5) and Horst Görl, went unheeded. In November 1959, demolition of the famous Knobelsdorff building began.

A Proposal for the City Palace by Günther Vandenhertz (Table B)

In September 1959, Günther Vandenhertz of VEB Hochbauprojektierung Potsdam wrote to Herbert Rutschke, chairman of the district council, raising objections to the planned residential development south of the city canal. He and his colleagues had given the city center a great deal of thought. Under no circumstances should the City Palace be demolished; instead, it must be repurposed. Vandenhertz did not stop at words, but sent plans for the conversion of the palace into a hotel, youth hostel, and restaurant—a historic shell with a modern interior and hotel rooms featuring loft beds.

Documentarian of Transition – Arwid Lagenpusch

In 1943, at the age of nine and in the midst of the Second World War, Arwid Lagenpusch fled with his family from Lithuania to Potsdam. A self-taught photographer, he worked for more than three decades as a theatre photographer for the Komische Oper. In 1957–1958, he also photographed the Alter Markt. His carefully composed images of the ruins show the square largely cleared of rubble, even before the demolition of the City Palace, which would create new mountains of rubble.

Wall to the left

Construction of the Lange Brücke

In 1957, the Road Engineering Design Office had hampered the ongoing competition for the redesign of the city centre with its transport plan, as the route of the new bridge, situated downstream, ran directly towards the City Palace. On this basis, construction of the Lange Brücke began in 1958 and dragged on until December 1961. The hasty start to construction had consequences: the project had not been adequately planned and swallowed up funds that were actually intended for the development of the city centre, which in turn delayed this. In December 1961, Mayor Brunhilde Hanke was able to open the bridge to traffic, but the follow-up work dragged on for years.

A Commission for Weimar and Dresden (Table B 1958–1959)

In February 1959, the Minister of Culture of the GDR commissioned the universities in Weimar and Dresden to develop a design for Potsdam's city center, which was to preserve the City Palace and repurpose it. The Weimar University designed a cultural center with a congress hall, a demonstration square, a Liebknecht monument, and a stadium converted into a festival ground on the Lustgarten side, as well as a cultural center within the City Palace. A hotel and a theatre west of St. Nicholas Church completed this ensemble. Unfortunately, only a floor plan of the Dresden design has survived. However, the designs were never discussed further—the proponents of demolition had already prevailed.

May 1959: Debate on the cityscape

For the Park Festival in 1959, the District Local History Museum, commissioned by the City Council, presented the exhibition “Potsdam. On the Development of the Cityscape’. The guiding principle was that ‘the exhibition should show how, following the destruction of the Second World War, the workers’ and peasants’ movement has taken on the role of guardian of the cultural heritage, promoting the reconstruction of buildings of architectural heritage value, whilst at the same time ensuring that the growing needs of the developing socialist metropolis also shape the new cityscape.’

Politically, the aim was to prepare the population for further demolitions, particularly of the City Palace. The visitors’ book bears witness to debates on these issues.

December 1959–May 1960 The demolition of the City Palace

The future of the City Palace had been the subject of heated debate since the 1950s. However, with the emergence of ideas for building a socialist city from the mid-1950s onwards, the prospects for its reconstruction grew increasingly slim. In an attempt to appease public opinion, plans were made in the meantime to salvage key elements and incorporate them into the new building – a plan that was soon abandoned. Despite objections from the historic preservation authorities and prominent figures, demolition began on 18 December 1959 with the demolition of the Fortuna Portal, a process that dragged on until April 1960. Some architectural fragments were salvaged and handed over to the Potsdam Museum, among others.

A Turning Point in 1960 – Competition and Built Reality

In 1958, the 5th Party Congress of the SED called for the reconstruction of destroyed city centres by 1965 as part of the 7-year plan. The Politburo proposal subsequently submitted from Potsdam in May 1959, which stipulated the demolition of the City Palace, envisaged two construction phases: By 1965, a town hall, riverside restaurant, hotel and retail complex were to be built in the centre, followed after 1965 by a theatre, concert hall, library and department store – an extensive programme for the city’s cultural centre.

These buildings were to be situated within the 1959/1960 city centre competition. The submitted designs were intended to serve as a source of ideas for the city. Overall, the jury criticised the architectural execution of the buildings. Subsequently, in September 1960, the city established a reconstruction committee to take over further planning. The planned buildings were assigned to individual architects. However, the work dragged on, and the scale of the projects and the amount of funding required increased. Any change to the plans, however, had to be approved anew by the various institutions. In December 1963, Potsdam lost its status as a reconstruction city. By the anniversary of the end of the war in 1965, the dome of St Nicholas’ Church had been restored and the Old Town Hall was being converted into a cultural centre, whilst the planned new buildings were still a long way off.

Platform / plans and city models

A design by Hermann Henselmann for Potsdam’s city centre

Although concrete planning began in the wake of the competition, a design by Hermann Henselmann dating from December 1960 has survived. The chairman of the Potsdam SED district leadership had asked the renowned architect to contribute, as the major task facing Potsdam required a broad consensus. Henselmann discarded all previous plans; the square was to undergo a radical transformation: the hotel was situated north of St Nicholas’ Church, whilst a theatre, restaurant, hall and cinema were planned on the banks of the Havel. However, the design was only briefly discussed and met with little enthusiasm. Ultimately, the city reverted to its original plans, as the Politburo decision had already determined the locations. In 1961, the city published the detailed urban development plan.

1967 Urban development becomes a ‘top priority’

Since the end of 1963, Potsdam had no longer been classified as a ‘reconstruction city’. This decision led to a rapid reduction in the funds available for the ambitious building plans. The city planning department sought to fill the resulting gap by constructing administrative buildings. The development plan of May 1967 envisaged not only a multi-purpose hall and a riverside restaurant but also the construction of a new computer centre to the west of St Nicholas’ Church. Walter Ulbricht thwarted these plans on 22 June 1967: Although the First Secretary of the Central Committee approved the basic layout of the city and the planned ring of high-rise buildings around the city centre during his visit, he felt that a political and ideological objective for Potsdam’s city centre was lacking. Twenty-two years after the destruction, there was still no general transport and development plan.

The 1968 Politburo Proposal

The collaboration with the German Academy of Architecture, called for following Walter Ulbricht’s visit, resulted in three development proposals in August 1967: the renowned architects Hermann Henselmann and Kunz Nierade designed their vision for the Old Market, as did city architect Werner Berg. While Henselmann planned a festival hall directly on the Lange Brücke and the closure off of St. Nicholas Church to the west and north, Nierade and Berg left the square as a landscaped open space with a monument. All three, incidentally, planned the theater on the site of the Thälmann Stadium.

After further revisions, the Politburo proposal for Potsdam’s city center planning was approved in April 1968. It envisioned a ring of high-rise buildings surrounding the city center. South of the Old Town Hall, a building complex featuring a theatre and a multipurpose hall was to be constructed. St. Nicholas Church formed the southeastern corner of a block of buildings containing a library, pharmacy, apartments, and an educational center. The Politburo approved the plan on the condition that the new buildings be given an interesting design unique to Potsdam. This was emphasized because the increasing industrialization of construction throughout the GDR was producing an unintended monotony in urban planning.

The 1969 Competition

In order to incorporate the Politburo’s requirements into the subsequent planning, the existing plans were revised once again—with the focus now on the area west of St. Nicholas Church. The new development was not intended to form a facade directly opposite the church, which is why individual halls were separated from the main building block. The design developed by Kunz Nierade served as the basis for the competition to design the Karl Liebknecht Forum, including a monument and a multipurpose hall/theater, which was announced in August 1968. Eight collectives, each comprising architects, artists, and landscape planners, were invited to participate. The Karl Liebknecht Forum was intended to be used for major social events and, as a unified ensemble, to symbolize the overcoming of Prussian militarism. First prize was awarded to VEB Landbauprojekte Potsdam for a design featuring a rotunda situated in front of the building block that would later house the Institute for Teacher Education.

Table C 1966–1969

Two Study Designs from the Weimar University of Architecture (Table C)

Due to a general directive, the idea arose in Potsdam in the mid-1960s to construct various service buildings, for example, for water management, at the Old Market Square, thus alleviating the financial constraints on construction projects. The costs for this were borne by the future users or the ministries responsible for them. Two study proposals from Professor Hermann Räder's chair illustrate this planning approach:

The requirement for the designs was presumably the accommodation of office buildings, shops, and residential buildings on the site west and north of St. Nicholas Church. A festival hall and catering facilities were also to be included. Differences between the mandatory design by Ingrid-Ria Hacker and Klaus Fischer and the diploma thesis by Hans-Günter Vietz are evident in the forms of the buildings and the south side of the market square: While Hacker and Fischer close it off towards the Havel River, Vietz's design leaves the view of the town hall unobstructed.

Window wall

The Interhotel – the new socialist landmark in the cityscape

The 1960 competition had already envisaged a hotel as a prominent high-rise in the Lustgarten park by the Lange Brücke. The designs were revised several times, partly because the state offices responsible for assessing investment projects deemed the construction cost per room to be too high and uneconomical. Consequently, the high-rise was made taller to ensure the investment was worthwhile. Construction finally began in 1966, but as early as August 1968, repairs had to be carried out before completion because contaminated concrete had been used, calling the building’s structural integrity into question. Nevertheless, it was able to open in May 1969.

One notable feature was undoubtedly the Knobelsdorff Apartment within the building, which, like the sections of the Ringer Colonnade and other figures erected to the south of the hotel as a sculpture garden, served as a reminder of the former City Palace.

St. Nicholas’ Church is being redeveloped

Initial plans as early as 1962 envisaged a building block to the west of St Nicholas’ Church, running parallel to Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. In 1967, the town planning department proposed a computer centre for this site, but Walter Ulbricht categorically rejected the idea. The form that was later realised is already discernible in the 1968 Politburo proposal. However, implementation was delayed. Construction began in 1970–1974 with the General Scientific Library. State funding was available for housing, which is why the Staudenhof was built in 1971–1972. The Institute for Teacher Training could only be realised between 1971 and 1977 because the Ministry of Education relocated and financed the teacher training programme there, which had originally been planned for another site. 

The Obelisk on the Old Market Square

The Obelisk had survived the destruction of 1945, albeit damaged. Its edges looked as though they had been gnawed away. It was repeatedly the subject of debate during the various planning stages; for instance, demolition was discussed in the early 1960s. However, as Walter Ulbricht had no objections to it during his visit in 1967, it appeared on a list of buildings to be completed by the 20th anniversary of the GDR in 1969. It was indeed demolished in 1969, but only rebuilt a few years later. During the reconstruction, the Hohenzollern medallions created by Benjamin Giese in the mid-18th century were removed and replaced with those of Potsdam’s most important architects.

Table D 1969–1976

Dampened Enthusiasm and Shortages – Revised Plans in 1969/1970 

The competition had yielded ideas; now further planning followed. At a review meeting on the implementation of the Politburo’s decision, disillusionment set in: While the first construction phase—comprising a library, shops, and an educational centre—was generally approved, the attached rotunda violated the Politburo’s resolutions. Concerns were also raised about the design of the Liebknecht Forum. The monument had to be monumental, like the one for Lenin in Berlin. Furthermore, costs had skyrocketed; by December 1969, they had reached over 147 million, nearly double the Politburo’s original estimate of 76 million. A design, presumably by Hans-Jürgen Kluge, therefore proposed a clear, simple structure.

Thus, the planning entered a new phase, and four possible variants were prepared. The committees agreed to pursue Variant II, which included the first construction phase and a multipurpose hall. However, this variant also deviated significantly from the Politburo’s decision. In November 1970, a decision by the Council of Ministers brought the planning for the centre to a complete halt.

The Beautification of Stagnation 

With Erich Honecker's rise to power in 1971, the focus shifted to rapid (prefabricated) housing construction, concentrated in the city's outskirts, while the city centre was neglected. All ambitious plans for the so-called "social buildings" at the Old Market Square, intended as a cultural centre, had to be abandoned. Consequently, from 1970 to 1977, only the so-called first construction phase, west and north of St. Nicholas Church, was implemented. This phase included the General Scientific Library, the Institute for Teacher Training with shops on the ground floor, and the Staudenhof complex, housing a pharmacy and a savings bank.

In 1976, another competition was announced for five teams, this time dedicated to the design of the second construction phase, the southern part of the market square, as a green space. Some of the designs from this competition have survived, including the second-place entry from the city architect's office, drawn by Olga Liebert. As a result, a green space with a fountain and parking spaces was created underneath.

1974 A Model Photo to Marvel At – The Marstall on the Old Market (Table D)

As part of the expansion plans surrounding the new socialist thoroughfare Wilhelm-Külz-Straße (today Breite Straße), an idea from March 1974 proposed relocating the Marstall to the Alter Markt. To serve as a prominent entrance to the new thoroughfare, an extension for the Interhotel with 600 beds was to be built on the vacated site. The City Council had already decided in 1970 to reconstruct and expand the Marstall as the GDR Film Museum. By the end of April 1974, the plan to relocate the Marstall was deemed “unfeasible for cultural-political and urban-architectural reasons” and was thus scrapped.

1977–1983 Karl Liebknecht Monument

During the redesign of Wilhelm-Külz-Straße in the mid-1970s, the abandoned Liebknecht Forum was repurposed as the Liebknecht Monument. Sculptors associated with the German Academy of Arts, such as Werner Stötzer, Walter Arnold, and Ludwig Engelhardt, had been involved in the earlier plans. They were no longer included. Instead, the Berlin sculptor and former professor at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art, Theo Balden, was commissioned. He had been intensively studying Liebknecht since the early 1960s. For Potsdam, Balden chose a monumental, expressive form, the central figure of which appears as the "heart and flame of the revolution." The sculpture stood on a pedestal accessible to the public. From it, a concrete pergola led to a mosaic wall designed by the Potsdam artist Kurt-Hermann Kühn, depicting the ideological positions of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

Wall to the left

Artistic Perspectives on the Old Market Square

Even after its widespread destruction at the end of World War II, the Old Market Square remained a popular subject in the visual arts. Perspective, technique, and format were as individual as the artistic language itself. This wall displays paintings and prints from the period between 1951 and 1985. With the exception of the large-format painting by Christian Heinze, they come from the collection of the Potsdam Museum.

The late 1940s and early 1950s were still very much dominated by the emotional and physical processing of the bombing. Otto Heinrich and Hubert Globisch were both commissioned to create reconstruction plans, but their approaches could hardly have been more different: While Heinrich dramatically depicted the ruins of the Havel Colonnade [in room 1!], Globisch chose a historical model for what was to be rebuilt – even in the mid-1950s, when plans for the new Potsdam city center were already well underway, he visualized a reconstructive rebuilding of all three buildings in the ensemble around the Old Town Hall. At that time, Gerhardt Hadert was still preoccupied with the loss of the unique architectural panorama at the Old Market Square, which had developed over centuries, and dramatically depicted the ruins under a blood-red sky reminiscent of the night of terror. Just a few years later, bright colors had returned to his palette: Surrounded by a blue, cloudless sky and lush greenery, the preserved old buildings and the rising new ones stood side by side. While Hadert documented growth and decay, Karl Raetsch and Peter Rohn dedicated themselves to the city's cultural pride: Raetsch, with broad, expressive brushstrokes, created a vibrant backdrop for the "Hans Marchwitza" cultural center, which opened in 1966. Rohn sought a panoramic view from one of the tower windows above the colorful bustle of the fair behind the obelisk. The Old Market also remained a popular subject in graphic art: Herbert Wohlert accepted commissions for the city in the 1960s. In woodcuts and etchings, he created high-contrast snapshots of the temporary construction boom in the old town center.

Finally, in 1985, Wolfram Baumgardt dedicated himself to further, crucial details at the Old Market in the painting "Encounter at the Old Market": The popular "frog eyes" light the way into the light for several passers-by.

Extended captions art

Paintings

Peter Rohn, View from the Potsdam Club House, 1966, oil on canvas

The view from the tower of the Old Town Hall extends across the Old Market Square, now used as a parking lot, with its fairground, into the distance. Behind the brightly lit rides lie the partially destroyed buildings on Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. The towering water management building on the left edge of the painting (demolished in 2011) is only suggested; in the background rises the tower of the Garrison Church.

Acquired from the artist in 1968 via the City Council

Gerhardt Hadert, Ruins of the City Palace at Night, November 21, 1955, oil on cardboard

The Potsdam artist Gerhardt Hadert painted this view of the ruins at the Old Market Square at dusk in November 1955. He took up his vantage point on the shore of Friendship Island. The silhouettes of the City Palace ruins with the Garrison Church in the background, St. Nicholas' Church, and the Old Town Hall are reflected in the dark, shimmering waters of the Havel River. Despite the reddish hue of the sky, a romantic atmosphere fails to materialize.

Acquired in 1978 with funds from the Central Cultural Fund from a private collection in Potsdam.
The restoration was made possible through private donations via the Friends of the Potsdam Museum.

Christian Heinze, View of Potsdam, 1974, oil on canvas, Railway Sports Club Lokomotive Potsdam.

In the early 1970s, the artist Christian Heinze, originally from Dresden, was commissioned by Lokomotive Potsdam to create a large-format cityscape. From the Interhotel, he captured the view at the intersection of Friedrich-Ebert-Straße and Wilhelm-Külz-Straße (today: Breite Straße). The panorama stretches from the Marstall (Film Museum) across the Institute for Teacher Training (demolished in 2017) and the construction site at St. Nicholas Church to the "Hans Marchwitza" Cultural Center (Old Town Hall). A wedding couple is just leaving the building. The artist himself is riding a bicycle in a yellow raincoat. Can you spot him on the canvas?

Wolfram Baumgardt, Encounter at the Old Market Square, 1985, oil on canvas

The title of Wolfram Baumgardt's painting is cleverly misleading. No encounter is taking place here; rather, pedestrians are crossing the square, their compositional proximity on the checkerboard-patterned paving stones, yet they have no further points of contact. The true star of the painting, and the reason for the young person's distracted gaze in the foreground, are the spherical streetlights framed by a band, better known as "frog eyes" or pedestrian zone lights (FZL), which have since disappeared from the cityscape.

2023 Gift from the artist
The restoration was made possible with the help of private donations through the Friends of the Potsdam Museum association.

ROOM 3

Partition wall 

1988–1992 
What a fuss! Urban Design Reflecting Social Change

Since the destruction of the Old Market Square in 1945, there had been repeated discussions about building a theatre. Only the facade of the Schauspielhaus (Playhouse) remained, and the Hans Otto Theatre operated under difficult conditions in a former restaurant on Zimmerstrasse. There was no shortage of visions and projects, but none were ever realized. After decades of stagnation, the discussion about building a theatre on the Old Market Square gained momentum again in the mid-1980s, after the SED district leadership gave its approval to the location in December 1984. Years of planning and design followed, until finally, on September 1, 1989, the foundation stone was laid.

However, history caught up with this building just a few weeks later. After the Peaceful Revolution, this project was once again up for debate – as it represented a massive change to the cityscape. As early as October 1990, the city council decided on a careful restoration of the historically developed urban layout and plan. With the changing social system, the design of the market square was once again up for debate. The existing unfinished theatre building was demolished in 1991 and replaced the following year by a temporary structure planned for six years, which the people of Potsdam nicknamed "the tin can." It wasn't until 14 years later that the temporary building was dismantled and the new theatre on Schiffbauergasse was opened.

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The Theatre's History

As early as the 1960 competition, there were designs for a theatre building at the Old Market. None of these designs were implemented. Instead, from the mid-1970s onward, there was a "location roulette" for the building: Initially, the plan was to build it at the New Market, incorporating the coach house. However, since this would have involved the demolition of numerous residential buildings and the relocation of businesses, the focus shifted to Babelsberg Street. The three proposed locations there were quickly discarded after a soil survey in 1980. The York Street location, favored in 1982, also had to be abandoned. In 1984, after a renewed examination of eleven locations within the city limits, the decision was once again made in favor of the most cost-effective option at the Old Market. Unlike the theatre designs from 1969, the building was positioned closer to the Lange Brücke (Long Bridge) and its dimensions were significantly reduced from an initial 127,000 m³ to 80,000 m³ of enclosed space. The opening of the square towards Wilhelm-Külz-Straße was intended to connect the Karl Liebknecht Forum with the Alter Markt (Old Market Square). The planned opening coincided with Potsdam's 1000th anniversary in 1993.

Table: 

A Theatre at the Old Market 

A city planning study from March 1985 envisions a modern theatre whose facade would incorporate salvaged architectural elements (spolia) from historical buildings. Specifically mentioned were the Wrestlers' Colonnade, a relief from the City Palace gable, and sculptures. At the end of October 1985, the project was included in the plan of the State Planning Commission. Six months later, a construction management team was established within the Urban Planning Office, and a project brief was developed, which was approved in June 1986 by the District Council and the District Leadership of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany).

The building's design changed until 1988: The spolia were removed, the originally very large building was first reduced in size, and in April 1987, it received the round entrance porches facing the market square and the Old Canal, visible in the model. As recently as September 1988, the city council, in a so-called fundamental decision, stipulated that the entrance area had to be designed in a more "portal-like" manner, the facade improved, and the fine arts integrated. Disagreements between artists and architects from the East German Construction and Assembly Combine regarding the design further delayed construction. The laying of the foundation stone, originally planned for January, finally took place in September 1989.

1991 – The Year of New Beginnings

Events unfolded rapidly this year: In March, City Planning Director Wieland Eschenburg and City Conservator Andreas Kalesse (1) drafted guidelines for the preservation of historical monuments in Potsdam. The changed framework for urban planning led to several initiatives: Italian, Dutch, and German architects participated in an international architects' seminar (2), presenting a wide range of development possibilities. The designs and recommendations formulated for the city council were presented to the public in October 1991.

At the same time, the Ruhr Regional Association developed a city centre concept for Potsdam (3), which emphasized a mix of residential, administrative, and cultural uses: Potsdam was to develop into a major regional centre with its own distinct profile. The year also saw an exhibition on the City Palace as well as the decision to demolish the unfinished theatre building. This reopened the Alter Markt (Old Market) as a projection space.

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Public Information

On eleven open days in March 1989, Potsdam residents were able to learn about the planned theatre building at an exhibition. Together with 30 scheduled guided tours, 3,502 people took advantage of this opportunity on Klement-Gottwald-Straße (today: Brandenburger Straße). According to the project management, the design sparked a wide range of discussions. Criticism ranged from the desire for an attractive facade design and suggestions for a dome on the stage tower to the need for adaptation to the existing historical building fabric. Some visitors also complained that they had only been involved after construction had already begun.

"Seek the Welfare of the City" – A Groundbreaking Exhibition at St. Nicholas Church

From September 10 to October 8, 1989, an exhibition at St. Nicholas Church stirred the emotions of Potsdam's residents. Tracing the history of the city's second Baroque expansion, it presented a powerful and emotional plea for the preservation of its historical buildings. Approximately 10,000 visitors flocked to the exhibition and left their opinions in the guestbook. Here are some of the comments:

"A city without history dies!"

"Potsdam must be preserved in its old style, otherwise it is no longer Potsdam. It's time to put an end to the demolition."

"These demolitions are so sad – how much of a personal, human fate, of an individual's history is being and has been torn down is not even apparent here. Who can be held responsible for this?"

`“Demolishing old and historic buildings always means losing a piece of one's home. But those who gradually lose their home will eventually no longer feel at home in ‘their’ city.”

Potsdam Gallery

On March 1, 1990, the Potsdam Gallery opened in the Staudenhof under the direction of Renate Bergerhoff. In the former gallery space of the VEB Environmental Design and Fine Arts, the “Gallery of Socialist Art,” affiliated with the Potsdam Museum, found its first permanent home under a new focus, 14 years after its founding. Exhibitions featuring contemporary artists were presented there until 1992. Then, for financial reasons, the gallery closed again.

Showcase / Wall

Manfred Forstreuter, Fire in the Tower. A report, 1992, print on paper, analog photograph, on loan from the artist

Manfred Forstreuter, Memory Album of the “New Sanssouci”, 1992, ballpoint pen, analog photograph, on loan from the artist

In the autumn of 1991, the Lower Saxon artist Manfred Forstreuter staged a performance lasting several weeks in the Old Market Square. He was motivated by the hope of tearing down the wall in the minds of people in East and West. Forstreuter spent seventy days in an octagon made of segments of the Berlin Wall, from which he gradually freed himself with a hammer and chisel. Over the course of this time, he decorated the interior with eight figures from Potsdam and Prussian history. Forstreuter was physically attacked twice, and the interior of the “tower” was vandalized during a hospital stay. Giving up was out of the question. On the second anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the walls of his temporary dwelling came down.

The concrete fragments, transformed into works of art, are now considered lost after being stored in the state parliament building on Brauhausberg.

Paintings

Gerda Ebert, Untitled (Old Market, Theatre Construction Site), 1990, oil on hardboard

Shortly after the demolition of the unfinished theatre building on the Old Market Square was decided, the moment of temporary standstill on the square inspired the Geltow artist Gerda Ebert (born 1946) to create a large-format painting. Using superimpositions reminiscent of Lyonel Feininger's "prismatic" architectural paintings, Ebert created a space that reveals shifts within time and human endeavors. Slightly offset from the center of the painting, a bright portal leads from the steps of the Old Canal towards the distant St. Nicholas Church. Only the tympanum, column drum, and dome are visible, echoing the portal's color and adding a light blue for the sky. To the left, behind a smaller portal, geometric forms of varying sizes are arranged one above the other, set off by their reddish, terracotta-colored plasticity. A double row of small square openings is reminiscent of the anchor holes in the formwork of the unfinished theatre, which, after decades of planning, unexpectedly created space for new possibilities. The painting was created plein air in 1990 and came to the museum through a purchase by the Potsdam district administration.

In 2023, Gerda Ebert donated 20 paintings and drawings from her oeuvre since the 1980s to the Potsdam Museum, facilitated by Sabine Braun and the Friends of the Potsdam Museum Association.
1990 Purchase by the Potsdam District Administration from the Potsdam Plein Air Festival

Hubert Globisch, Collage for the poster “Potsdam Painting Festival Gallery for the Opening 1990”, 1990, collage, mixed mediaprobably acquired by the artist in 1992

Friedrich Plate, Old Market Square with Theatre Simulation, 1989, oil on canvas, private collection

The design of the theatre at the Old Market Square inspired the Potsdam painter and glass collector Friedrich Plate to envision the future: A circular building positioned in front of the stage tower dominates the square south of the obelisk between the cultural center and the teacher training institute. Designs of the planned building had been published in the press, to which Plate referred here. His artistic approach opens up several perspectives. The glazed facade reflects the surrounding buildings and simultaneously allows glimpses of the structures visible from behind, such as the Interhotel or the government building on Brauhausberg. The transparent structure lends the scene the character of a vision.

Stephan Velten, Two designs for the wall design in the foyer of the planned Hans Otto Theatre on the Old Market Square, 1989, collage, gouache, on loan from the artist.

In April 1989, several Potsdam architects and artists were commissioned by VEB Umweltgestaltung (a state-owned environmental design company) to participate in a concept group for the visual interior design of the planned theatre on the Old Market Square. Among those invited were Stephan Velten—then head of the Painting and Graphics section of the Association of Visual Artists—Wolfgang Thiel, Manfred Rößler, Peter Rohn, and the sculptor Horst Misch. In a document entitled "Penetration," the concept group outlined a vision of a diaphanous spatial design created through reflections. It was intended to give visitors the feeling of being simultaneously inside and outside the theatre. The halt in construction of the theatre also put an end to this vision.

ROOM 4

1993–2025 Orientation towards the Historical Model. Urban Design since 1993

Following the fundamental commitment in 1990 to reconsidering the historical city plan and layout, the entire urban planning process had to be rethought. The land-use, traffic, and development plans of the GDR were no longer up-to-date. Since large parts of the city required redevelopment, the Potsdam Redevelopment Agency GmbH was founded in the early 1990s, in which the city holds a majority stake. With the adoption of the "11 Principles of Urban Development" by the City Council in 1993, the intention to return to the historical plan and layout of the city centre was reaffirmed.

Two years later, Potsdam applied to host the 2001 Federal Garden Show (BUGA) – this marked the beginning of the redesign of the city centre. For the BUGA, the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden) was redesigned, and the Fortuna Portal was reconstructed through private donations. It was still a long way to the opening of the state parliament in the former city palace in 2014, but the buildings, based on historical models, steadily rose and continue to rise to this day. GDR-era buildings like the university of applied sciences and the Staudenhof had to make way, despite considerable protest, albeit belatedly.

Current discussions about the Old Market Square focus on other issues, such as the heat on the paved area and how to foster a stronger sense of ownership and engagement with the space by the local population. Perhaps you would like to share your opinion on some of these questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

Tabel A

Ideas and Plans for a New City Centre 1993–2000

After the social upheaval of 1989/90, the city initially focused on preserving the remaining old buildings. From the mid-1990s onward, potential uses for development around the Old Market Square were explored. Interesting designs were provided, for example, by the Urban Design Task Force – an English urban planning group supported by the then Prince Charles. They envisioned the university located on the site of the former City Palace and planned a tunnel under the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden) to connect to a planned relief road.

From 1996 onward, the urban development framework plan presented by the planning office TOPOS was discussed, including in the exhibition "Ideas for the Old Market Square." The results of these plans were incorporated into the design plan. A competition launched in 1997 in connection with the Federal Garden Show also aimed to make the old city plan visible and to transform the pleasure garden into a public park. When the Potsdam City Council designated Potsdam's city centre as an urban renewal area in 1999, the conditions for a planned and targeted revitalization were in place.

Table 1997–2003: Designs from the University of Applied Sciences

Professors Theo Albers, Klaus Theo Brenner, and Ludger Brands of the Architecture and Urban Planning program at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences addressed Potsdam's urban development in several projects in 1997, 1999, and 2003. The 1997 master plan focused on revitalizing the historic city centre along the waterfront, which involved the long-term demolition of high-rise buildings to restore the historic cityscape. The two subsequent projects addressed, firstly, the design of the city centre between the Old Market Square and the Lustgarten as a political and cultural hub (1999), and secondly, the establishment of a science centre through the conversion of the former Institute for Teacher Training (2003). This "Science Centre" was intended to serve as a flagship for the city's scientific institutions.

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Guestbook Exhibition Ideas for the Old Market Square

“Questions upon questions arise when one imagines that modern people are supposed to find the long walls of an old palace aesthetically pleasing… A palace to satisfy outdated urban planning or even for the 'pleasure' of Potsdam's residents? Is there no alternative? Does it take courage to fill 'old walls' with something light, elegant, and modern? Is modern architecture in Potsdam inconceivable?”

“Seize this unique opportunity to revive the city's historical centre. Please do not disfigure this sensitive centre with ill-considered, hyper-modern building complexes. Young Potsdam residents also desire a historical reconstruction! ”

“The primary goal should be the restoration of the city centre to roughly its original form. This would make Potsdam's city centre just as attractive as Sanssouci. ”

“The main objective should be to restore the city centre to roughly its original form. This would make Potsdam's city centre just as attractive as Sanssouci. ”

“The reconstruction of the City Palace can never restore the historical situation! The original is and will remain lost forever; a building on this site would be… a building from the late 20th century. Filling this large complex with shopping, hotels, multi-purpose buildings, etc., would only make this fact all the more painfully apparent and reduce the elaborate reconstruction to an embarrassing Disneyland… We live in 1996, not in the Baroque era; yearning for things that are definitively lost casts a shameful light on the state of our society…”

“The exhibition is a joke. Are there no more concrete plans? Potsdam is living up to its reputation as a provincial capital. I demand more courage for a future-oriented design of the Old Market Square and not this hodgepodge of ideas that have already been put forward.”

From the guestbook of the exhibition “Planning + Building in Potsdam 1990 to 2001”:

“The overall view clearly shows where planning masterpieces and complete failures were implemented. To be able to appreciate the positive aspects, but also to prevent further urban planning disasters in the future, which unfortunately didn't end with reunification, this city needs public relations work like this!”

“The new building on the site of the Church of the Holy Spirit (the stump of the tower was blown up in 1974!) is another milestone in the destruction of the cityscape.”

“You present many new concepts, but I believe that these are not feasible.”

“It's hard to know for sure. But concepts arise from visions, and perhaps some will remain visionary. The exhibition should be visited by as many Potsdam residents as possible. Only then can one participate in the discussion, because knowledge is the basis for forming an opinion!”

“The new building on the site of the Church of the Holy Spirit (the stump of the tower was blown up in 1974!) is another milestone in the destruction of the cityscape." "Regarding Lustgarten/Alter Markt: The temporary construction installation of the city palace is unacceptable to me and a waste of funds that are urgently needed elsewhere!”

“An interesting and elaborate exhibition. Unfortunately, the connection between the construction planning and other development plans is not clearly explained. Even after the partial redesign of the so-called Potsdam Centre, too much building mass is permitted. Overall, one gets the impression that Potsdam's future is being jeopardized. In contrast, the historical development phases are presented very impressively.”

Chronicle of the Fortuna Portal and the Historical Square Level

With the decision to build on the site of the City Palace, obligations were undertaken regarding the clearing of the construction site: First, streets had to be rerouted and gas, electricity, heating, and water lines rerouted; all this while incorporating archaeological excavations to preserve valuable traces from prehistory and the Middle Ages. During the construction of the Fortuna Portal, experts determined the historical square level, which was between 20 and 120 cm lower. In 2004/2005, the entire square was reconstructed to this historical level.

December 16–31, 2006: Chronicle of the Development Plan and Public Survey

Following the state parliament's decision regarding the new construction at the Old Market Square, a development plan had to be drawn up for the building site. An initial draft contained hardly any design specifications. This was rejected by the Potsdam City Council (SVV). The second draft stipulated the north facade facing the Old Market Square as a historical reconstruction, while the other sides were left open to flexibility. However, this development plan also failed to gain the approval of the SVV. Thus, in December 2006, the citizens of Potsdam were asked for their opinion: Just under half cast a vote, with 42% in favor of the Old Market Square location, followed by the Speicherstadt (Warehouse District) with 28%. Critics argued that the question was leading, as it did not specifically ask about the type of development on the footprint of the City Palace. Based on the results of the vote, the development plan was adopted in July 2007.

Table B

From the City Palace Site to the New State Parliament Building 2000–2014

The feasibility study commissioned by the Potsdam City Council (SVV) advised against an idea, supported in May 2000, for a multifunctional congress and hotel centre in the City Palace, as this could not be accommodated in the historic building. The Brandenburg State Parliament increasingly emerged as the preferred user. The Potsdam City Centre Advisory Board followed this recommendation with a design by the architect Günther Vandenhertz.

In May 2005, the State Parliament decided to construct a new parliament building on the Old Market Square, based on the outlines and footprints of the former City Palace. A feasibility study envisioned the north facade facing the Old Market Square as historically accurate, while the remaining three sides would feature modern architecture.

This compromise formed the basis for the development plan a year later, and in 2007, six selected consortia submitted development proposals based on this plan. During the jury process, a donation was received from the Hasso Plattner Foundation for the reconstruction of the historical facade, prompting the participants to revise their designs in light of this requirement. Of the two remaining submissions, the Royal Bam Group, with architect Peter Kulka, was awarded the contract in August 2009. The state parliament building, constructed between 2011 and 2013, was opened in January 2014.

Table C

Ideas for the Castle Surroundings 2005–2025

Following the decision to develop the former castle grounds, the city planning department turned its attention to the other buildings surrounding the market square: the development along the Havel riverbank and the three blocks west and north of St. Nicholas Church. In 2006, a planning workshop comprised of seven interdisciplinary teams addressed these four areas. The expert team extracted 27 detailed solutions from the designs, which were incorporated into a master plan. This plan, presented to the city's residents in an exhibition, became the basis for the further development of the city centre.

In principle, the decision was made to adopt a small-scale development model, based on historical precedents. Through participatory processes, so-called flagship buildings were defined in the subsequent procedure and incorporated into the integrated flagship building concept in 2010. The experts attributed a special spatial and atmospheric impact to these buildings. They were therefore to approximate the destroyed predecessor as closely as possible. The available records only allowed for the reconstruction of the Barberini Palace. The facade design was specified for further buildings, often the corner buildings of the blocks. The implementation of these plans continues to the present day. Block III was handed over to its users in 2025.

A project of the University of Applied Studies from 2006: Potsdam Mitte 2020 (Table C)

Parallel to the planning workshop, Professors Albers, Brands, and Brenner published another draft, “Potsdam Mitte 2020.“ In their view, the previous plans for the city centre were too small-scale. The planning area has been expanded in the draft and now includes additional districts. Besides Brauhausberg, which features a spa and hotel, the southern part of the city centre, for example, is also being considered, having previously been untouched by revisions. The block structure west and north of St. Nicholas Church is now being extended to the east. Berliner Straße is to run again along Brauerstraße to the Old Market Square, and the banks of the Havel River are to be developed with small-scale buildings up to the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Feasibility Study Potsdam Museum

We would like to include a 2021 design by the architectural firm van geisten.marfels for the expansion of the Potsdam Museum. It envisioned a new building on the site extending to the former Blücherplatz. Implementation failed due to a lack of funding.

Window wall

Chronicle 2007–2009: Traffic Reconstruction and Expansion of the Lange Brücke (Long Bridge)

A prerequisite for developing the site of the former City Palace was the reconfiguration of the traffic flow. This included the removal of Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, the realignment of Breite Straße at the level of the City Palace site, and the construction of a new bridge for pedestrians, buses, and trams. The groundbreaking ceremony for the new bridge was celebrated in February 2008, and 18 months later, the first tram was able to cross the new bridge.

Showcase: University of Applied Sciences

The Long Road to the Demolition of the Former Institute for Teacher Training (later University of Applied Sciences)

Until the planning workshop in 2005/2006, the University of Applied Sciences and the Staudenhof complex were ignored in the planning. The University of Applied Sciences was usually integrated into a single block, as was the case in the plan for a science centre. However, since the workshop's overall plan, Blocks III-V have been built based on the historical model, effectively covering the GDR-era buildings.

The demolition of the University of Applied Sciences, in particular, sparked heated debates, the occupation of the building, and numerous actions to save it. In 2015, the initiative "Rethinking Potsdam's City Centre" (PMND) published a design for a contemporary building and, in 2016, launched a citizens' petition against the sell-off of Potsdam's city centre, which the city council rejected. Demolition began in 2018. The ornamental elements known as "stars" became symbols of the effort to preserve GDR buildings in the cityscape. They can still be found in many places throughout the city today.

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1971–1977: Stars of the Institute for Teacher Training

Wolfgang Kärgel was responsible for the architectural decoration of the Institute for Teacher Training. The Potsdam architect, from Sepp Weber's team, designed the pilasters dividing the floors as well as the stars on the facade of the glazed corridors between the building sections. The stars became a symbol in the debate surrounding the demolition of GDR architecture in Potsdam. Numerous segments of these stars can still be found today as spolia on buildings in Potsdam.

2024/25 Demolition of the apartment building at Staudenhof

In the discussions surrounding the preservation of the so-called Staudenhof, alongside the preservation of an East German-era building with numerous affordable one-room apartments, questions of carbon footprint played an increasingly important role: The so-called embodied energy was cited, meaning the amount of energy encompassing the entire life cycle of a building. However, studies commissioned by the city showed that renovation would be more expensive than demolition and new construction. The last tenant, who had filed a lawsuit against his eviction, moved out in December 2023. Demolition began the following winter.

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A space for humor¬¬___expression of political opinion__ activity___discussions on climate change____your opinion!

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Artistic Perspectives on the Old Market Square after 1990

On October 3, 1990, art from the GDR was closed to collectors. This had consequences for the “Gallery of Socialist Art,“ which until then had belonged to the district museum. Under the direction of Renate Bergerhoff, this department had continuously acquired Potsdam views from artists' studios, also for the purpose of urban development. The collection, which had grown to approximately 6,200 works between 1976 and 1990, was indeed deposited in the Potsdam Museum. However, for far too long, the museum lacked an acquisition budget for contemporary art after 1990. Only with the opening of the new location at the Old Market Square in 2012 and the associated rebranding as the Potsdam Museum – Forum for Art and History could there again be a budget for acquiring contemporary art in the city's budget. This dilemma is reflected in the marginal proportion of works of visual art in this exhibition that could be acquired for the museum's collection after 1990.

Therefore, countless studio visits were necessary to examine the artistic engagement with the leaps in urban development of the Old Market Square. The events-driven impetus for the works is striking. Structural changes such as the demolition of the unfinished theatre, the reconstruction of the Fortuna Portal, the long period as an archaeological excavation site, the conversion of the City Palace into the State Parliament building, the transformation of the Palais Barberini into a modern art museum, and the demolition of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences building all sparked artistic curiosity about the current conditions in the area. Often, these reflections arose from a sense of unease triggered by intended changes in design. This was linked to an awareness of tipping points in urban planning and the resulting polarization among the Potsdam population. To put it bluntly, one could argue that many more visual inventions after 1990 are fueled by this polarization, and that the search for and definition of a position by artists such as Nicola Spehar and Detlef Birkholz, as well as Adam Sevens, is expressed right in the middle. In contrast, with Barbara Raetsch (Time of the Cranes) and Monika Schulz-Fieguth, one gets the impression that the depiction of the conditions of the Old Market triggered an emotional connection to their own biographies. Christopher Lehmpfuhl's playful approach to painting is uninhibited, and in his contemporary veduta, the here and now is layered with tactile brilliance.

Extended captions Art

Julia Theek, Provocative, 2001, lacquer on metal, private collection

In her work, Julia Theek combines motifs from Prussian and local history with modern artistic techniques. The burnt-out theatre wing of the City Palace on the left, modeled after a design by her grandfather Paul August, is partially obscured by the reconstructed Fortuna Portal. Frederick II wanders with a greyhound across the rubble of time, while the measuring instrument of an airplane in the foreground keeps alive the memory of the Night of Potsdam. Minerva, the "most beautiful woman in Potsdam" (Friedrich Mielke), gazes serenely down at her audience from the edge of the painting.

Barbara Raetsch, Time of the Cranes 4, 2015, oil on canvas

The Potsdam artist Barbara Raetsch, who died in 2025, dedicated one of her last major series, "Time of the Cranes," to the construction work at the Old Market Square. “For me, art is also a creative engagement with my time. In 2014, giant cranes dominated the Old Market Square in Potsdam. They towered high, cutting through the sky, moving incessantly, each day in a different way, in a race against time,” the artist said in an interview. Several times a week, she came to the Old Market Square with her camera and captured the scenes, then hurried back to her studio on Am Kanal street and transformed her impressions on canvas into dramatic chiaroscuro scenes. A few years later, the bright red construction fence of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences building, slated for demolition, once again inspired her to create fascinating visual concepts. 

Acquired from the artist in 2017 through the Mayor's Office

Christopher Lehmpfuhl, Obelisk Shadow, 2025, oil on canvas, KORNFELD GALERIE BERLIN

At the invitation of the Friends of the Potsdam Museum, the Berlin-based artist Christopher Lehmpfuhl painted the Old Market Square from various perspectives over the course of a year. Lehmpfuhl is known for his cityscapes and landscapes, painted in situ with great speed and a rich use of color, without a brush. The artist applies oil paint to the canvas with his hands, allowing himself to be inspired by the moment, thus creating tightly synchronized, close-up impressions of the interplay between architecture, nature, sky, and—occasionally—humanity. In the basement of the Potsdam Museum, the Friends of the Potsdam Museum Association, in cooperation with KORNFELD Gallery Berlin and the Potsdam Museum, presents the exhibition “Christopher Lehmpfuhl | Alter Markt Potsdam” (May 30 to October 25, 2026).

Filmstation/Ipads

The film station shows excerpts from 14 interviews with contemporary witnesses about the development of the Old Market from 1945 onwards, as well as 14 short film sequences of events and happenings on the square.

Interviews

Elke Böttcher

Employee for events at the Hans Marchwitza Cultural Centre, after 1989 director of the Altes Rathaus – Potsdam Forum event venue, from 2011 to 2023 employee at the Potsdam Museum – für Kunst und Geschichte.

Elke Böttcher talks to Marie Elisabeth Sinde about her time at the Hans Marchwitza Cultural Centre between 1989 and 2001.

EB: My name is Elke Böttcher. I was born here in Potsdam and have witnessed the city's development first-hand. I went to university in Leipzig and then came back here. I am married, have two children and work in this building, or rather, have worked in this building for 33 years. It has shaped my professional life.

The Hans Marchwitza Cultural Centre was the cultural centre in the middle of the city. It offered a very wide range of events that you could attend, but as I said, there were also working groups and the singing academy here – so it was very diverse. The chess club had its home here, as did the carnival club and the coin collectors. It was really a – the rooms were used to their maximum capacity, there was always a lot going on here. In addition to the other cultural centres that existed here, but this one really has a long tradition. And in Potsdam slang, it's still called “das Marchwitza”.

This building here – not just the cultural centre, but the old town hall with its various uses – was the focal point of my working life. I have witnessed the development of this building since 1989, and for me it is like a second home.

Yes, then the discussion arose as to how many cultural centres the city could still afford. This centre was not up for discussion at first because of its long tradition. However, there were many discussions: How can we continue to use it? There were round table discussions and, I remember, an idea was put forward: We want to turn it into a women's cultural centre, or cosmetics companies came here, or a particularly great idea was to turn it into an American steakhouse. So it really went back and forth, but the decision was made to continue using this building for cultural purposes. We then gave ourselves the name Kulturhaus Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall Cultural Centre) in reference to this building. Funding was cut, so we had to think about how to keep this building alive. It occurs to me that we were almost alone around the Old Market Square with the church and the shell of the new Hans Otto Theatre. 

So it was a completely different situation than it is now, and our building also functioned very well as a municipal building. Many meetings were held here by the mayor and the state government. Many important politicians shook hands here, but also artists. It was really a very popular building, precisely because it was located in the middle of the city, it worked well, and we experienced a lot here. Many artists who had not previously had the opportunity to exhibit here were able to show their work, and we had special exhibition staff for this purpose. There was a real spirit of optimism.

MES: Looking back at the Old Market Square, because the Old Town Hall has witnessed so much change here. How have you experienced the changes here at the Old Market Square over the last few decades?

EB: Well, live. Very loud at times. It was a never-ending construction site. When I started here in 1989, as I said, the theatre tower of the theatre that was to be built here stood on the waterfront. And then there was this break, it was demolished, which was very loud. After that, the tin can, as it was called here by the Potsdamers, the Hans Otto Theatre venue, was built, but even on the Old Market Square there was a lot of construction work, especially by the archaeologists. Everything here was examined. I don't know how many layers of stone there were here, I can't say now, but there was always construction going on.

Prof. Ludger Brands

Architect, professor in the CITY | BUILDING | CULTURE department at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (1994–2023), has been presenting designs for the redevelopment of Potsdam's city centre since the 1990s, together with Prof. Klaus Theo Brenner and Prof. Bernd Albers (†).

Prof. Ludger Brands talks to Dr Wenke Nitz about the master plan for the design of Potsdam's city centre, developed by the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam in 1997.

LB: The background to the first master plan was that there were many particular interests in the city, but also particular operations. And our approach has always been to keep an eye on the big picture and think in the long term, rather than developing individual plots of land and not having any overarching political decision, i.e. also in the sense of, let's say, a general development plan.

Perhaps this plan that you have printed here is quite good, and we have also used and redrawn it several times, namely the overlay between the 1990 state and the 1945 state underneath, which clearly shows that there were no longer any urban spaces here, no major traffic routes that crossed the historic building contour, including the part of what was then the city palace. Our aim was also to create a pleasant inner-city environment, i.e. a well-designed public space and, above all, to reactivate the former city centre. In the early 1990s, this had shifted towards Nauener Tor, where the restaurants and cafés were located and where people spent their time, while no one spent any time here.

The temporary Hans Otto Theatre with its tin can exterior did not help matters either. That is why it was also our concern that every city naturally needs a reference to, let's say, its birthplace or historical centre or the city's origins, and that was clearly the case here, and it was also a concern to recreate a high quality of life in a reconstructed city layout. And that, of course, led to very big differences or disputes with Potsdam politicians and also the public. 

And we had endless debates in the city forum. This institution still exists and deals with a wide range of issues, but for many years it focused very strongly on development in and around the Old Market Square. Politically, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that things would proceed as the city councillors had decided in the early 1990s. Instead, this decision to preserve these important examples of post-war modernism, in quotation marks, was repeatedly questioned and discussed from scratch. And the saddest contemporary in this game was St. Nicholas' Church, which was completely isolated and surrounded by relatively mundane buildings, no longer having any connection to an urban space.

And that was, of course, also our concern, to restore this urban space, this very interesting, folded square, regardless of the architectural expression, whether it is partly reconstructive, historicising or simply new. And our concern was, of course, first and foremost that it be restored with contemporary architecture on an urban scale.

Prof. Klaus Theo Brenner

Architect, founder and chair holder of the Potsdam School of Architecture at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (1996–2015), presented designs for the redevelopment of Potsdam's city centre together with Prof. Ludger Brands and Prof. Bernd Albers (†) from the mid-1990s onwards. 

Prof. Brenner talks to Dr Wenke Nitz about the plans for Potsdam as a city on the water in the late 1990s.

KTB: What is interesting about Potsdam is, on the one hand, its relationship to green spaces, to the parks surrounding the city centre, which naturally has a very strong influence on Potsdam and beyond. And as far as the city centre is concerned, its location on the River Havel is of course very important.

What was special was that our activities were always based on relatively clear, simple urban development growth principles and quality principles. And then there is the water, the city on the water, which is of great importance in relation to the city centre. And the whole thing is of course accentuated by the fact that the Brauhausberg practically overlooks the water.

And that's why it was important to redefine the city centre in relation to Brauhausberg across the River Havel. But the problem at the time was that we, including at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, based in part on the experiences in Berlin, the urban reconstruction in Berlin with the IBA in the 1980s and then after reunification, understood that this topic of urban reconstruction was not meant to be historicising, but rather to form a basis for action for our current and future urban development. This means that we have to keep history in mind and, based on this situation and in connection with the given natural landscape qualities, which are of particular importance in Potsdam – as can be seen, of course, in the parks on the outskirts – make this the guiding principle of the urban discussion.

The Potsdam University of Applied Sciences has made a name for itself and developed greatly in this regard. The problem was that urban policy in Potsdam was absolutely pragmatic. So you simply have to find the right answer for individual interests.

But what defines our strategy is this visionary dimension of urban development over many years and across individual property issues. And that's where this exhibition was particularly important. And what was always nice in Potsdam was the relationship between the university, the city's public sphere, and we always found places where people could meet, i.e. hold exhibitions, organise events and so on.

In other words, the whole thing was basically an urban cultural debate that was based on territorial and historical circumstances on the one hand, but then built on a vision for the city that was not historicising and formalistic, but rather based on an overarching architectural development model. And then there was this confrontation between urban development policy in Potsdam and this urban development culture debate that originated at our university.

Brunhilde Hanke

First female mayor of the city of Potsdam (1961–1984)

Brunhilde Hanke (1930–2024) talks to Hannes Wittenberg about her vision for the Old Market Square from the 1950s to the present day (July 2024).

BH: When I arrived here in 1952, I found the Old Market to be a very desolate area of Potsdam. Remnants of the Long Stables still stood in the middle of the city... the tram line was completely different, having been provisionally restored after the bombing of Potsdam. The Lange Brücke bridge was temporary, as was the railway bridge over the Havel. There were many temporary structures. It was very difficult to get to the city railway station.

HW: For me, the restoration of the historic centre is...

BH: Very complicated. It was a long-term discussion. As early as the 1950s, the city officials at the time had considered how to redesign the centre, [...] based on the previous image that people had. They considered perhaps including a theatre, which had not been located directly in the centre before [...]. There was a basis, a discussion, and during the time I was in Potsdam, there were still the remaining ruins of the blown up and demolished [...] city palace, and I know that my little daughter used to climb on the remains of the walls of the Long Stables. They were still standing there. Part of it had been destroyed in the war and the other part was still there.

HW: The concept of a centre is flexible. Geographically speaking, the centre is somewhere in Babelsberg. Was it actually undisputed that the Old Market Square was the centre, or were other regional focal points also envisaged as centres?

BH: Not directly as a centre, but as a focal point in the reconstruction of the city, Brandenburger Strasse was of course very important to us. That was the shopping street. People needed flats, they needed facilities to meet their needs, and they also wanted a certain [...] beauty to be restored to the city. And that caused us a lot of problems, because everything associated with monuments is incredibly expensive. That's why we always put the centre around the city palace on the back burner, because we didn't have the funds for it. And then we concentrated on doing that there – Brandenburger Strasse was in terrible condition. That was very, very difficult [...].

HW: Back in the 1950s, there was still the city castle, there was the church and what later became the cultural centre. The castle wasn't demolished until 1961. Do you remember any ideas...

BH: The city castle is... it was already gone in 1961. When I arrived in 1952, the parts that remained of the castle were still standing. But it was torn down in a kind of cloak-and-dagger operation in 1959/60. When I became mayor in 1961, it was gone, and even the rubble had been cleared away. There was nothing left but an empty space.

My vision for the Old Market was this: if it was to become a lively and prestigious place, the Old Market needed a theatre. A theatre alone does not create a vibrant atmosphere. So the idea was to create a building complex along the Havel River, on the Alte Fahrt, that would house both the theatre and a large multi-purpose hall [...] that could be used for concerts as well as other events, cheerful events. We never got any entertainment programmes because we didn't have the space. They had to be able to offer a certain number of seats so that it made economic sense. We wanted to have a multi-purpose hall where you could also hold New Year's Eve balls – yes, one that could be redesigned and used for many, many entertaining things to bring more life to the Old Market. That was the vision. Then we would have had St. Nicholas' Church, we would have had the Marchwitza House – where I had also come to the realisation that we should build not only for the intelligentsia, but for the population as a whole, a central cultural centre for the city where a lot of life is possible, cultural life, scientific life, and in the later planning, we had the establishment of one of these corner houses, these Boumann houses, which gave the Old Market a kind of entrance, a rounding off, so that we could use these houses for scientists, for architects, for artists of all kinds.

I would also like to mention that I had a vision of “Potsdam by the water”. This was a general guideline for our work, to make the water visible again for the city. And water in the city is extremely important for many things [...], so I had the idea of putting a beautiful fountain on the Old Market Square [laughs], where the obelisk used to stand. It was damaged and had to be completely dismantled when we renovated the Old Market Square, which was a huge construction site at the time. And a beautiful, central fountain with beautiful water features. I also had to work hard to convince others. I succeeded, and it was included in the plans. I thought about these things a lot when I couldn't sleep and so on, and I thought: historically, that's not really right. Historically, it belongs [laughs] to the Old Market Square. And then I discussed it again with the city planners and they thought, yes, we could of course do the following: Rebuild the obelisk, but no longer include the medallions of the dukes, i.e. the Habsburgs, the [laughs; HW: Hohenzollerns], yes, the Hohenzollerns, the kings, but instead the master builder, and that was a good idea.

My vision is that we need to think about how to make better use of this square. It is almost always empty. People wander around in groups, looking at the façades or heading purposefully to the Barberini, but otherwise nothing happens in the square [quietly]. If the square is to be brought to life, it needs more greenery and more seating so that people can linger there, so that street musicians, young people, might play music there, so that something happens in this square and people don't just go purposefully to museums or churches, so that the Old Market reflects life again.

Saskia Hüneke

City councillor and member of the culture committee, former city councillor and curator of the sculpture collection of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (SPSG)

Saskia Hüneke talks to Dr Uta Kumlehn about the workshop process for the construction sites at the Old Market in the 2010s and about the significance of memorial architecture for the square.

SH: I believe that controversial debate always brings benefits. Not material benefits, but intellectual ones. Because discourse always leads to people perhaps abandoning their entrenched ways of thinking. The centre of Potsdam, as it is now emerging around the Old Market here, has undergone very specific changes.

I believe that controversial debate always brings benefits. Not material benefits, but intellectual ones. Because discourse always leads to people perhaps abandoning their entrenched ways of thinking. The centre of Potsdam, as it is now emerging around the Old Market here, has undergone very specific changes. The regeneration of this centre around the Old Market Square has been prepared using very specific methods. There were also city council resolutions and public discussions. From 1998 onwards, the city forum dealt with this area on several occasions. And so it came about that there were workshop processes in which the future of these individual construction sites was discussed very openly and flexibly. You can really see how the concepts have evolved as these building sites have been developed one after the other. So on the Havel, on building site 1, here in the Havel area, it is actually also economically high-calibre and not yet subject to any social requirements, for example. But it has already been decided that there should be individual plots of land and individual buildings. Not a monolithic block that only looks a little bit different on the outside, and not one investor, but several investors, individual plots of land, so to speak. That was the basic principle behind the approach there. And in construction area 3, where the university building used to stand, this became even more concentrated. It was supposed to be this story with individual plots, with different owners. And there was also the requirement that a certain percentage of the flats had to be socially acceptable."

UK: Looking at the Old Market Square now, to what extent would you say that the combination of landmark buildings and commemorative architecture, or even façades adapted to commemorative architecture, has been successful on the Old Market Square?

SH: That is also the result of a process. As I said at the beginning, I was actually interested in the structural question because I believe that certain volumes, certain urban spaces, certain sizes of spaces create good or bad feelings for people. And that's why I was concerned with this structural recovery. That changed when we became very intensively involved with the sculptures of the Potsdam City Palace in the 1990s.

That was part of my professional environment. When I realised this and Dr. Rahn had also analysed the components we had excavated, with Argus, sponsored by West Berlin art dealers, west of Sanssouci Park, where they were lying in the small wood, I began to realise more and more, especially given the density of the original fragments on the market side, that these fragments had a structure-forming character on the façade.

And that convinced me to say, yes, we basically need a historicising façade for the building on the Old Market Square. This went hand in hand with the discussion about the location of the state parliament. And when it still remained unclear what the exterior of the state parliament should look like, I initiated a Forsa survey with Argus at the time.

We compiled a comprehensive questionnaire. This resulted in a representative, differentiated outcome. I was surprised to find that although a narrow majority said yes, it should be built in its historical form, over 70 percent clearly stated that they did not want the state parliament on the Old Market Square to be a modern building.

That was an interesting result, which then reinforced the decision to actually reconstruct the façade at this location. And that was another important step in this debate. However, the trigger was a citizens' movement such as Mitteschön, which strongly articulated, and to which Christian Wendland also belonged, that we want to have the historical façades of the most important buildings. 

And so this guiding building concept came about, which I believe was decided in 2010 without much debate. The idea was to construct the most important buildings in a historic style and to build modern buildings in a modern style in between them, albeit in a historic cubature, but also in a modern architectural style. The specifications for the individual plots in the tenders were also in line with this, so that bidders for the individual plots also had to deal with this.

UK: Let's go back a few decades. Personally, I find this very early decision to return to the historically grown layout shortly after reunification, which I believe was in 1990, very premature. Now the question is: Were there no other concerns at the time? Or why was there such urgency to make this decision?

SH: That was a motion put forward by the CDU parliamentary group at the time, and it was indeed aimed at re-establishing this historic centre. As I recall, it was referred to the urban development committee, or the building committee, as it was simply called at the time, I believe. And it was expanded to include the first point, which was that the main concern should be to preserve the original building fabric. As a result, the establishment of a redevelopment statute for the second Baroque city expansion, for example, was already decided in 1990.

The primary focus was actually on restoring the historic original building fabric. This was then combined with many different activities. Potsdam became a member of the Association of Towns with Historic Centres. Tax funds were used for these redevelopment areas, but private investors also got involved. And then there were tax advantages for investments in the east, which led to what I consider to be a completely baffling, enormous wave of redevelopment in Potsdam between 1995 and 2015. With the high quality of a design worthy of preservation.

This applies not only to the second Baroque expansion of the city, but also to the large Wilhelminian style districts, for example. The second point dealt with Potsdam's city centre at this point. And it was actually about the historic cityscape. For me, what is stated in the justification is always decisive. Namely, that it is basically about the floor plan and the elevation, and thus the city structure. And besides, it was a cautious rapprochement that stretched over a long period of time. That is a very moderate formulation, because it was already clear to us at the time that this would naturally be a process of discourse. So it wasn't simply a decision to rebuild everything historically. That's almost how the question sounded. That was by no means the case. And it was also very clear that there were other priorities at first. Nevertheless, at one point it was necessary to act quickly, and that was the theatre shell.

Such major urban changes can only take place with the loss of one thing for another, otherwise it won't work. I remember that in the city forum, where there is a core group that always prepares and pre-discusses these consultations in order to enable a very dense, qualified discussion, we considered whether it would be possible to somehow convert the technical college building with this cubature, or find partial or interim solutions. We then realised that none of this would lead to any acceptable solutions, because the inner courtyards would be very narrow, and the university of applied sciences was too tall for that, and none of it really worked. Vandenhertz had even made another design in the years before on the market side, setting the university building back a bit and using a modern, contemporary design as the new façade, and then leaving the university building as it was. We considered all of this and repeatedly came to the conclusion that it would not work in terms of urban planning, because the university is simply located there and leaves so much urban space free on Friedrich-Ebert-Straße, but it was too cramped to combine the two somehow.

Various building façades have now been reconstructed at the Old Market. And this term is basically a restoration ethics term that is used to replace and reproduce what has been lost as accurately as possible. And what has been lost, which is also a question of restoration ethics, must then be replaced as accurately as possible.

This places high demands on architecture, construction technology and restoration, as well as sculptural language, in order to achieve the highest possible standard. Of course, in the case of a new building that is being constructed today and is to have such a historicising façade, this is not possible without compromises. Nevertheless, it is very important that this standard has always been maintained and has been vigorously advocated by Mr Zurkuhlen from the Lower Monument Authority. This plays a very important role in terms of quality. People always like to talk about Disneyland, because of course the aim here is to recreate an image that has been lost. But this high standard, which comes from the ethics of restoration and monument preservation, and which has been adhered to very closely here for the most part, makes it something genuinely new. It is also a layer of time. This reconstruction of these façades is now also a layer of time.

Jann Jakobs

Former Mayor of Potsdam (2002–2018)

Jann Jakobs talks to Hannes Wittenberg about the challenges of building the state parliament in the historic setting of the City Palace, traffic management issues at the Old Market Square, and approaches to solving the development of the master plan.

JJ: Once you had studied the history, it was clear what a special architectural presence the Old Market had, what outstanding architecture it was. And I can remember countless events that we held here, whether they were May Day celebrations or election campaign events, you always had the feeling that you were standing on a meadow, especially in the direction of Mercure and also in the direction of Lustgarten, where there was nothing built. I always said that this was the largest intersection in Central Europe.

To put it quite dramatically. It was crying out for redevelopment, and I must say that was always very much on my mind. When I was elected mayor in 2002, I remember it very clearly, there was a journalist at the PNN, Günther Schenke, who was also very passionate about this issue, and he took me aside at some point and said, 'Your success as mayor will be directly linked to whether you succeed in restoring the Old Market Square. And then I thought, those are quite high standards being set here, but looking back, I always had the feeling that, well, that's how it is. It was in 2002 that the Fortuna Portal was rebuilt. I remember that the idea was always to see this Fortuna Portal, financed and donated by Günther Jauch, as the start of the construction of the city palace in whatever form.

This was then discussed very controversially afterwards. It was mentioned only once during one of the election campaign events. Matthias Platzeck then announced that you could forget about a state parliament ever moving in there. As Minister-President of the entire state of Brandenburg, I cannot support this politically, so forget it. That was quite a setback, of course, because it was completely unclear what use the site would be put to. Without a use, you can't build anything. That was also clear. In this respect, there are countless memories of the particular challenge, but also of the unformed shape of the square.

But the situation I found was that many things were being discussed, but I had the feeling that the foundations for this were not in place, and I would just like to remind you that this was a huge transport hub. And there was discussion about whether the city palace should be rebuilt, although it was perfectly clear that, if I remember correctly, at least a third of the area where the state parliament stands today was taken up by transport routes, trams and roads. And then I said, before we consider what should be rebuilt there and in what form – there were already redevelopment goals that had been agreed upon at that time. So, whether you remember it or not, based on the decision to take a cautious approach to the historic centre, there was nothing. And then I remember sitting down with the Ministry of Construction and thinking about how we could solve this traffic problem first. There were long discussions about how this should be solved. I still remember that everyone here predicted the collapse of inner-city traffic. That was always an issue in election campaigns. Then we started to develop a very systematic approach to what a traffic solution might look like, first of all. Secondly, that traffic really would not collapse. And thirdly, to plan the necessary construction measures and also to create the financing options for this. I don't remember exactly how much it was, but it was over 20 to 30 million euros that couldn't be financed from the city budget, so we needed subsidies, and that was only possible in very close coordination with the subsidy provider, which in this case was the Ministry of Construction. And so we worked quietly for a year and a half or two years, so to speak, and came up with this traffic solution with the parallel bridge to the Lange Brücke, which was a prerequisite for the tram to be able to run, and so on and so forth. And I can remember many discussion events where we then proved that there would be no traffic collapse if we dismantled this intersection, as was then done. I also remember that it was impossible to make people understand that it would still work until someone said, come here, we need to do a traffic simulation. I remember events we held here in the Old Town Hall, where we set up a huge screen and simulated traffic situations. Someone in the audience could then ask, ‘What is the traffic situation like on Monday morning when it's raining after the holidays have started?’ We had developed a module that allowed us to simulate this, so you could see that yes, there would be a traffic jam, but it wouldn't come to a standstill. I think this part alone cost us €30,000.

We had to do some persuading, and that was the first prerequisite for even being able to enter into a discussion about how to redesign the area. I remember that in 2001, during the Buga, this was hinted at, so to speak. It was clear that the traffic routes ran right through the middle of the City Palace building. 

At the same time, discussions began about how the surrounding area should be designed. There was consideration given to dividing it into different construction phases or stages and then entering into intensive discussions about what the design should look like in detail. We weren't the only ones doing this, mind you. I remember there were similar discussions in Dresden, where they were a bit further along, having rebuilt everything around the Frauenkirche to match the historical layout. We travelled to Dresden, took a look and considered whether this was a model that could be applied elsewhere. However, we came to the conclusion that it would not be possible to rebuild everything historically. Then there was the idea of restoring the original plot layout, dividing it into very small parcels. It was all public land, but undeveloped. There was also the Hans Otto Theatre, the temporary theatre, on the Alte Fahrt. Then, of course, there was the idea that if we wanted to find people who could finance it, it was clear that we would have to sell it as a whole. In the end, we abandoned that idea and, after lengthy discussions, divided it into small plots. Based on this, a very nuanced discussion ensued about which buildings should be identified as key structures, which should have an external façade, and where new, suitable buildings should actually be integrated. It was a long discussion process, but it ran parallel to what was happening with the City Palace. I think that was a very good idea, and it was also supported by a broad, interested public. One needs to mention that.

HW: The redevelopment agency contributed a lot to this.

JJ: Yes. They were very committed. On the one hand, there was a very broad discussion, and not everyone involved was an expert, to put it mildly. As is often the case, there were people who remembered how the square used to be, how it looked back then, and of course they had this image in their mind's eye that everything would be just as it was before – which it isn't, but the essential elements, the layout, the size of the plots, were all very decisive factors, and it wasn't as if Cornelius van Geisten and Erich Jesse sat there and thought it all up. Rather, it was a discursive process in which new developments that were in keeping with the times were constantly emerging – you can't simply recreate a city historically, with traffic and so on and so forth, traffic regulations, I mean, you don't run trams across a busy square anymore, it doesn't work because the risk of accidents is far too great. You have to find other solutions. The role of the redevelopment agency was always to take suggestions on board, check their feasibility and find technical solutions. I believe it was Erich Jesse who said at some point that if they didn’t understand that traffic would still function if we restored the square to its old form, then we would just do the simulation. The guiding architectural concept was not something that anyone came up with, but rather a result.

I believe that the broad acceptance it ultimately found – we know that in other cities, the reconstruction of historic buildings was viewed very critically – but this process that took place was infinitely important.

Now, a state parliament is anything but a magnet for the general public. To be honest, I also found the idea of building a central university building here, for example, very appealing. That would have had a completely different revitalising effect. That decision was not made, and I believe that the state parliament moved into the city palace, in quotation marks, which was also a very good decision, but without these deliberately made decisions to bring important functions that also attract the public here, it would not have been possible. Simply living in a historical setting was not an option either. This mixture has been very successful. There are lots of additional functions that one can imagine. The Old Market needs to be revitalised to a certain extent, but I am sure that this will happen as the construction work around the Old Market slowly comes to an end, and then there will be opportunities here too. – this summer, I had the opportunity to sit outside at a new restaurant and watch the sunset, which is magnificent. I wonder why no one has discovered that yet, but I'm sure it will happen, and then we'll have what we want. Without the will to liven it up with public functions, it would only have been worth half as much.

HW: What is your vision for the Old Market?

JJ: Well, I think it's already magnificent. People are always complaining that there should be plants here and so on and so forth. I always say, yes, yes, but I think the square looks fine as it is. What I don't understand is the impatience that people suddenly have, and I think it's crazy that greening the Old Market Square is becoming an election campaign issue. You have to put up with it to a certain extent. I think that as it succeeds in attracting additional life, it will become unnecessary. They should put their restaurants, their flower pots and beds there, but for goodness' sake, planting additional trees is simply not appropriate here, I must say. It would be important to allow some public life to take place here, including the weekly market, the Christmas market and concerts, although this is again subject to restrictions and safety regulations. Holding a magnificent concert with the Babelsberg Film Orchestra in the courtyard of the City Palace was great, but nothing big has taken place there since then because it was subject to crazy restrictions. You don't have to use the courtyard; you can also hold other events here. I think it was two years ago that a magnificent concert was held to mark the opening of the music festival, and that's also something that makes this place special: really beautiful, large-scale events. I think you have to stage them to a certain extent, very deliberately, and then they will also become more attractive.

Andreas Kalesse

Conservator, 1991–2018 City Conservator and Head of the Lower Monument Protection Authority of Potsdam; awarded the Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2000

Andreas Kalesse talks to Dr Uta Kumlehn about the historical value of the Old Market as the original centre of Potsdam and the question of memory architecture vs. reconstruction.

UK: What was so special about the Old Market Square? In short, what were your first steps as City Conservator in Potsdam at that time?

AK: For me, it was important to counteract the emptiness that existed here, both in terms of content and architecture. And it was important for me to analyze the former central function of the city—what had actually been here? Surprisingly, hardly anyone knew. Everyone only talked about the City Palace and the church, but that was about it, and then the cultural centre. And it was clear to me that this didn't constitute the city centre. And for me, the analysis was crucial, but so was the question of how to deal with such insights. And it was important to me, very quickly in these chaotic times, to establish a clear direction. How do I handle the centre? Because ideas were bubbling up from every corner, and I knew that if something wasn't implemented very quickly, chaos would only ensue. And we know this kind of chaos from many different situations in Germany, where initially, no one knew how to manage the centre. This chaos is still evident today in many centres across Germany, something that people are still trying to rectify.

UK: And the fact that the Old Market Square was, or is, the centre of Potsdam—that wasn't a question for you from the beginning; you simply knew it? Because that's a question we've been asking our visitors who are already at the museum recently, and we've been talking to them in the Old Market Square: Where is the centre of Potsdam? We asked them. And very often, the answer we got was, "Well, Brandenburg Street, but not here."

AK: Exactly, that was something that was important to me from the very beginning. I've known Potsdam extensively through countless visits since the 1970s. And Potsdam has always fascinated me. And it was also clear to me from many conversations that the people of Potsdam considered Brandenburg Street, then called the Boulevard, to be the centre of Potsdam. And I always thought to myself, that can't be right. It was definitely somewhere else. But that's also connected to the fact that there's absolutely no knowledge of the historical cartography of this city, that people had no spatial or functional understanding of it whatsoever.

You could take photos of ruins, you could still have some memories and all that, but you had no coherent idea about how this city functioned.

The centre isn't the boulevard and the Brandenburg Gate, of course, but the centre is right here, where we're sitting. And it has been from the very beginning. Not from prehistoric times, when the Slavs founded this Potzupimi, which was located further east back then, but since the Ascanian dynasty occupied this spot and guarded this Havel crossing, fortifying it with a defensive structure, it gradually developed into a centre. But since Potsdam was never a significant city—I know the people of Potsdam will take offense at this remark, but one has to acknowledge historical truth—the centre was indeed located here. And it didn't really develop into a large, sprawling hub. It's actually a bit of a chaotic jumble in the middle. It only became something more significant later, when the Great Elector built a magnificent palace complex here, and then everything else followed.

Potsdam was never a major city—I know the people of Potsdam will take offense at this remark, but one has to acknowledge historical truth—the centre was indeed located here. So, we have a central function that developed very, very slowly and was also reshaped several times, so a collective memory of what constitutes the core of Potsdam never really formed. Unlike in other cities, where the Romanesque cathedral, the medieval chapel, or the castle complex, or something like that, has stood since time immemorial, providing a visual anchor.

UK: Memorial architecture here at the Old Market.

AK: Yes, I coined that term. And for the following reason: For decades, art historians—you could even call them, somewhat polemically, art hysterics—have been telling us that replicas or reconstructions are something truly terrible. That's nonsense, of course. It's a very extremist stance in Germany, cultivated especially by art historians.

Things are reconstructed or replicated all over the world. For me, it was clear from the beginning that we weren't talking about reconstructions here, but about subsequent architecture that is meant to evoke the original architecture. But not copying it.

Because copying the buildings wouldn't have made any sense at all for the new functions. And so, it was clear to me from the start that these are memorial buildings. They simply have to remind people of what represented beauty, spatial structure, the order of the city, and basic functions.

And that's why it was important for me to say that we must place the centre of power of the rulers back on the site of the old city palace, the site that has existed since the Middle Ages. That means bringing the democratically elected state government down from the Kremlin and putting it back in this location. And that, according to my proposal at the time, it should be located here in the Old Town Hall, the official seat of the mayor.

We don't have that here; instead, everything began much, much later, and then it was given a particular form through architecture, which was then lost in 1945, up until 1944 and later, so nothing could be reconstructed from the collective memory.

And that's precisely the strange situation I encountered. It was clear to me from the very beginning that we had to redefine this centre, the heart of the city of Potsdam, and propose its function. Because a heart that doesn't function is pointless; it's a dead object.

Now it's become a museum. Also very important, also a municipal institution. It was important to me that it wasn't privatized.

There was simply a different understanding of the city, one that didn't stem from its historical roots. That's why, from the very beginning—as the maps also show—I focused on the very birth of this centre. What was the centre here in the Middle Ages? How did this centre gradually grow? What qualities emerged? And were they qualities? All these questions could be answered quite well.

And we were fortunate that, because Potsdam was a royal residence, this very centre is always well documented, in countless photographs, in many paintings, as you also have here in the museum, in drawings, descriptions—you don't find that everywhere. And then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in this building, when it was still a cultural centre, we created a gigantic exhibition with parts of our map collection, spanning all the floors, where we were able to document on countless sheets what this centre once looked like. We only had a few weeks to put on this exhibition. And I think well over 3,000 people came to see it. Everyone was fascinated and couldn't believe that the architecture we showed was actually built just like any other. This collective amnesia really affected people. And it was important to show examples from our own archives; these aren't just figments of our imagination we're talking about. These aren't just some blurry photos from Grandma or anything like that. No, these buildings actually stood here, because we were able to display construction surveys and drawings. So, verifiable evidence of the very heart of the city. And we covered the entire area, not just the market square, but all the way down to the former Church of the Holy Spirit. The entire streetscape was documented. This had an incredible impact because it made people realize, for the first time, that the true historical centre was right here. And we've shown this again and again in several other exhibitions here in this building. And that showed me how important this examination of that period was. Of course, we were responsible for the whole city and couldn't just focus on the Old Market Square. Many others picked up on this and continued the project. And that's the whole point, that's how we've always seen ourselves. And I, in particular, saw it as the originators of the ideas, the catalysts, that others had to take them up and build upon them. And that has worked out perfectly. And that's actually what deeply satisfies me. That the ideas I began formulating in February 1991, both in writing and orally, could then be developed further through a wide variety of contributions. And that people took them up, felt fascinated by them, and then implemented them. And we can all admire the result today.

But the overall picture is what counts. The people who come here, and the people of Potsdam who are reclaiming this space, won't be wandering from facade to facade; that's for architecture students or art historians. And they'll give all sorts of clever speeches about it, but that's not the point. The point, and indeed the point of the discussion from the very beginning, has always been to understand how the whole works and the connections and links with what remained, with the city's expansions.

And that's why I don't want to pass judgment on individual buildings; they all fade into the background. You can see that very clearly here on the street where the Barberini Museum stands, which is also surrounded by new buildings. You can argue about one or two of them and initially rub your eyes and ask, "What's that doing here?" But if you walk down the street from the bridge to the museum, you'll notice how the individual buildings disappear.

They're no longer noticeable at all. This means that the historical landmark buildings, the reconstructions or memorial architectures—let's continue to call them that—possess so much power that they completely overwhelm the banality of the surrounding neighborhood. And I believe that's a good trick: to recognize the power inherent in these old facades, whether Baroque, Palladian, or Neo-Palladian, and how they still bring a certain quality to the urban space today, especially when these powers transcend mere formal elements.

UK: In the early 2000s, in the 1990s, was it more the norm for people to actually be in favor of restoring the Old Market Square to its historical form?

AK: Well, shortly after reunification, I was here in this city several times, participating in various discussion groups and forums because I was very interested in what was happening here.

And I was repeatedly told by many people that the first thing that had to be torn down was that dreadful institute and the travel centre. These two buildings were a thorn in the side of the people here. I didn't find anyone during those early years who spoke out in any way in favor of preserving these buildings.

I never met anyone. That came later from Kassel and Marburg, people from the West who then thought they had to reinvent Potsdam and who, based on some fashionable inventions of GDR architecture, wanted to recognize certain design qualities and stylized them into high cultural assets. All the buildings were examined by the heritage preservation authorities, specifically the state heritage preservation office, which was responsible for their designation as protected monuments and whether they still are. They were thoroughly examined, and no one found anything of interest in them. All of this was added later by people who had never seriously engaged with the city's history and who simply wanted to make a statement against what we were beginning to create here.

And anyone who clearly saw the discrepancy between the newly exposed height of the old market and the elevated university building right there on the corner, had to understand at that point, if not before, that such a structure wasn't built for the future and couldn't be sustained in the future. But that had to be seen first. It also had to be understood that the entire old market had been buried under two meters of rubble.

We lowered it back to its historical level, and then it became clear that everything that had been added later was built on top of two meters of rubble, which had absolutely nothing to do with the history. And this posthumous attempt to enhance it, these functional forms that were simply architecturally unsuitable, is ideology.

One of the architects who designed this institute building objected in 2017 to any association of the building with Scharoun's architecture.

That simply wasn't their intention. These are all interpretations by people who wanted to forcibly elevate some bad architecture. But as I said, one of the architects vehemently denied this. And I thought that was very important.

This market was deliberately designed as an Italian piazza, one could say.

And if you go to Italy, you won't find a single tree in any square in Italy. Nowhere. Not in Venice, not in Vicenza, not in Milan. No matter where you go. Or in Tuscany, where our critics always like to go in the summer. And drink their Lambrusco. They then invent the climate here. We won't be able to save the global climate at the Old Market, nor will we be able to influence it in any significant way. Anyone who claims otherwise is a charlatan.

Even the most ardent weather forecasters can't change that. That is to say, if we consider the Old Market as a free market of Italian quality and are glad that we have something so southern here, then let's enjoy it. All our ancestors enjoyed it.

All the princes brought the Italian spirit to Potsdam. And if we now want to turn it into a German forest, that simply doesn't fit. And if it's too hot for people, then I ask myself, why do they go there? To stand there and moan about how hot it is? Then they can just walk those few meters to the Old Canal and enjoy the coolness there.

Why do they torture themselves in this market? It's absurd. You can see it's just ideology again. Nothing more.

Prof. Urs Kohlbrenner

Professor Urs Kohlbrenner is a freelance urban planner and architect, registered with the Berlin Chamber of Architects. The Kohlbrenner eG planning consortium developed a detailed concept for the guiding principles of urban development for Blocks III and IV in Potsdam's city centre.

Professor Kohlbrenner in conversation with Dr. Uta Kumlehn about his work as an urban planner in Potsdam and about the development and function of the guiding principles of urban development in the historical centre.

URS: Our office has been active in Potsdam since 1991. This began with development concepts for the sections along the Potsdam Havel River. This collaboration has been ongoing, more or less continuously, ever since. What do urban planners do? Urban planners are involved in the process and essentially have the task of consolidating the various interests and deriving concepts from them so that, in the next stage, either the administration can create the necessary legal plans for the transformation of a location or further processes can be initiated, such as competitions and the like. These tasks may become a bit more concrete over time, but urban planners don't actually build – that's very important to emphasize. We make every effort to find the right framework so that, above all, the common good for a place is correctly defined and as many interests as possible are voiced and possibly taken into account.

The head of the urban planning department in Potsdam also came from West Berlin; that was Richard Röhrbein. And that led to us being one of the firms asked if we would be willing or interested. Of course, we were, and then, I don't know how many other firms were approached, we were selected to address the issues arising in Potsdam's city centre. And then we prepared the planning workshop. That is to say, we weren't participants, but rather the organizers of this important process. And in order to be able to discuss it, planning principles had to be provided. And we helped prepare these planning principles, naturally in dialogue with the administration, with politicians, and other interested parties.

At that time, the focus was still on developing the foundations for the master plan concept. That was the goal of this process. It wasn't yet clear what would remain as it was and what would be changed. And the outcome at that time was that the historical city plan should be restored.

From this, the guiding principles for the buildings were derived, and the guiding principles then stated that the individual plots should remain standing, the corner buildings should be rebuilt as historically as possible, etc.

So, what we did was formulate the guiding principles for the buildings in our office. That formed the basis. And this guiding principles concept is still being pursued in principle today. Then the area was designated as an urban renewal area. And that's when the urban renewal agency came into play. The urban renewal agency is the one that tries to implement the plans in terms of construction. And the agency then holds architectural competitions for individual sections within this area, up until now. And the agency, in consultation with the city, invites specific architectural firms to participate in these competitions.

UK: There's a very small facade next to Plöger's Inn that always catches the eye. Can you explain why it's there and what purpose it serves?

URS: It's there because of me. The widening of Berliner Straße [corr.: Friedrich-Ebert-Straße] has resulted in this building line being shifted back by about 5 or 6 meters. Consequently, the original, historically accurate layout could not be realized, much to our regret, because the city was unwilling to narrow the street at that point.

URS: And that's why it was important to us and everyone involved at the time that it became visible that something was wrong. And that led to all the buildings facing the water now being the correct width, as they were historically. But then, for the first building behind the corner building, it was said that this plot no longer existed; it had been pushed aside. And that's why this is just the one narrow house you can see now; there will be similar things in the other blocks. And that's why only 60 centimeters, I think, or 90 centimeters of the historical plot remain. And that's why there's this strange thing in between. And that's precisely what the viewers walking through the area are supposed to think about: what actually happened here?

This is meant to make people walk through the area think, what actually happened here? 

The guiding principle for the new buildings stated that the most important buildings in terms of urban planning, when the area was developed, were the corner buildings. These were the most elaborate, and the intention was to reconstruct them as closely as possible to the original design, based on photos and plans. For the buildings in between, the focus was on the eaves height, number of stories, and overall height, which were then retained.

However, the details of the facade's articulation were left to the architects' discretion in the competitions. So, in a sense, it was a competitive process. The jury then decided, from among the submitted proposals, what was most appropriate considering the historical context and, viewed through a contemporary lens, what was the most suitable construction.

Potsdam has definitely gone its own way in this regard. In the sense that what's being done here, to put it in my own words, should tell stories.

It should, just as you asked, explain why things are the way they are. The viewer shouldn't be walking through a seemingly idyllic Renaissance world or wherever, but rather the viewer should be able to say, "What actually happened here?" And this will be particularly evident in the last block, where the old GDR building will remain, protruding from the building line, possessing its own distinct architecture, and where, incidentally, another kind of gap will be created at the corner next to it. I think it's crucial not to forget that the whole thing will only become truly understandable once it's finally finished.

The simplest thing that lasts the longest in cities is actually the city plan. That's really the most important thing. And that was also the most important thing here: to restore this city plan.

Because what the GDR did was a negation of the connections that existed there, including to the Havel riverbank area, how it was organized. People had thought of that, and it had its place and its justification. That's also one of the reasons why we said we wanted to restore the historical city plan here, as far as possible.

And with the buildings, there's more freedom. The buildings might stand for 100 years, and in 100 years, perhaps different buildings will stand there. But the city plan with its entire infrastructure will probably remain. The city plan is the greatest cultural achievement in the city. Not the buildings. We always talk about the buildings or their use. That's all much more fleeting.

UK: In Potsdam, many generations have perceived the layout or the square, the Old Market, quite differently. That's why, even very late in the game, there were still voices saying, "No, we want to preserve these and those buildings because we know them and because they are part of our identity."

URS: Yes, I can understand that. But that was a discussion in the city. And the city then decided on a course of action. And once the city decided on a course of action, the others were outvoted, even though they also had their arguments. That's the problem when you do something like this: you can't implement two solutions at the same time. People still have their wide Friedrich-Ebert-Straße.

I sincerely hope that the city will find the strength to complete what it has started and pursued with great dedication so far, even under the restrictions the city is currently facing. Because what has been realized so far, as I said earlier, is simply a torso that still needs to find its completion in the two blocks that are still in progress.

Barbara Kuster

Cabaret artist and singer from Potsdam, former cultural policy advisor at the Herbert Ritter Cultural Centre in Babelsberg, spokesperson for the Mitteschön initiative

Barbara Kuster talks to Dr Uta Kumlehn about her memories of the Potsdam City Palace, the Mitteschön citizens' initiative and her commitment to the construction of the Brandenburg State Parliament building with its historic façade and the Leitbautensystem (lead building system) on the Old Market Square. 

UK: You were born in from Potsdam, know the city like the back of your hand, grew up on Breite Straße, and recently wrote a book about your memories. We're interested in your involvement and your knowledge of the Old Market Square. You write in your book that as a young girl, you visited the fair here in the 1950s and played in the ruins of the City Palace. What was that like for you back then?

BK: Yes, of course, playing in my dreams was the most wonderful thing about childhood. My generation will confirm that; those were the most beautiful playgrounds ever. And the City Palace, it was in ruins, but it still had the feel of a palace. It was still very beautiful. At least, that's how I perceived it. And we played there. And I absorbed a great deal of aesthetics from a very young age, almost subconsciously. And when it was blown up, I was nine, when the wrecking balls came, I remember sitting by the railing at the Marstall and drawing it. I mean, somehow I knew—well, I wasn't really into architecture or urban development back then, nine years—it was just a gut feeling. It wasn't just that my playground was being bombed or blown up, but I also felt that something really terrible was happening, that something was being lost that shouldn't have been lost. There were plans to rebuild it back then, but they weren't done. Then came the car-centric city, we all know, then the Lange Brücke (Long Bridge) was built, then it was altered, and the City Palace was blown up. And the square, which used to be perceptible, back in my day, it really was a square. The trams used to run across it, always squealing around the corner, there on Humbloldt Street, and the tram stop was right on the Old Market Square. So, it was a square, despite everything. There was still a ruin there, and you knew it was a square, and then it was gone. Suddenly there was an unobstructed view of the Bauhaus Hill. They built over it with modern buildings, obscuring the city's layout, which, in my opinion, was the biggest mistake. They deliberately built over the original city centre, where the city began, where the city's history began, and it suddenly became the city's outskirts. Life retreated to Café Heider. Café Heider was the living room of Potsdam in my day. And while the students were there during the day, in the evenings it was dead quiet, there was nothing there, it was the city's edge.

It was only later, after reunification, that the Friends of Potsdam came into being. They were founded by Horst Prietz, who was my boss at the time. I worked at the Babelsberg Cultural Centre as a cultural policy officer. He was very committed to the old Potsdam and founded the Friends of Potsdam. They met here in this cultural centre, which was then called the Hans Marchwitza Cultural Centre. I went there once. And there was this vision that the City Palace would be rebuilt there. 

And then something clicked for me: yes, it is possible, we could perhaps rebuild it. And then everything happened very quickly: Günther Jauch built the Fortuna portal, which was a starting point, and then came the decision in the city parliament, or rather it was hanging in the balance, whether the state parliament would return in the form of the city palace, that is, in the form of the old city palace, or not. It was hanging in the balance, and then an acquaintance called me and said, they're rejecting it, we can't let that happen, we can't let it go through, we have to do something now. And so we talked on the phone, we talked on the phone in the morning, and all day and afternoon, 50 people stood in the square in front of the Fortuna Portal with banners saying we want the state parliament here as the city palace, etc. 

And then we made an awful lot of noise. Mitten in Schönberg and Potsdam and the dinner demonstrations and so on. Plattner observed this, and I had it confirmed afterwards by Rainer Speer, who said that if the Potsdamers wanted it so much, they would get 20 million from him. And when that was done, I got a call saying that Plattner had donated 20 million, so of course we popped the corks. 

We didn’t stop working on the City Palace then. You have to understand that we are a citizens' initiative, not an association. I always say that we are free-thinking citizens with swarm intelligence. So there were architects, building lawyers, artists, painters, all kinds of people, including me as spokesperson. So we contributed a great deal. Among others, there was the Redlich and Andreas Kitschke office, architects and engineers who dealt with this whole environment and who actually developed this concept, the master plan. Together with the city, of course. But the initiative actually came from Mitteschön. And in the end, this whole package was approved by the city council and found to be good. But Mitteschön played a very big part. We also worked very closely with Pro Potsdam, with Ms Rabbe. 

The size and height of the buildings and certain features such as tall windows etc. were specified. These were predetermined. The landmark buildings served as a guide. These were buildings that were important, also in terms of sightlines etc., and which stood out in particular and were important for Potsdam's history. So they were rebuilt with the same façades. By the cooperatives, by the way. Hats off to them! I wouldn't have thought that the cooperatives would manage it so well. And in between are buildings that are a little more modest and vary in eaves height, but are also small in scale. And that's the most important thing in an old town. Small-scale. So that pedestrians have variety as they walk. Otherwise, in the past, cities were always designed for cars. Large areas with lots of monotonous façades. And here we have small-scale façades of different types, small cafés, and it's all still a work in progress. It's not completely finished here yet. It's still under construction and we need a little more patience. I think it's going to be a really nice, lively area with lots of events, restaurants and shops. But it takes time.

UK: Is there anything that you think has not been taken into account in the reconstructions? Or anything that you feel is missing when you look at the old photographs of the Old Market Square? Or something like now, for example, the issue of climate change is of course always coming up. And many people who were asked about this in the Old Market Square, which was in the summer, it must be said, when it was very warm. Yes, there is no way to stand in the shade. Greenery is always a topic that comes up. Is there anything you would say is still missing or that we still need?

BK: Yes, and the keyword is green. And I know that the monument preservation authorities say it's a Baroque square, so nothing green is planned and nothing green is allowed. But there were times when the square was green, namely there were flower beds to the right and left of St. Nicholas' Church. There were flower beds around the obelisk. There was even a tree here in front of the building, I once saw a photo. And I know that a lot is being considered. So I know here in front, what's the name of the street at St. Nicholas' Church?

UK: Anna-Flügge-Straße.

BK: I'm not very good with streets. Yes, there will be trees there, Mrs Rabbe told me. And of course we're getting Steubenplatz, which is being landscaped. We at Mitteschön have also campaigned hard to make it bigger than the original square. So more greenery, as much greenery as possible with a cross in the middle, where there are benches where you can sit, where trees provide shade. So it will be a really nice haven of peace here in this area, similar to Versailler Platz. So we have two green spots available here. But in my opinion, the square could be even greener. 

UK: What is your vision for the Old Market?

BK: My vision for the Old Market? Well, it's very much based on Italian piazzas. A lively market that offers opportunities to hold markets and organise festivals. In this wonderful setting, surrounded by lots of restaurants, lots of outdoor seating, shops, so that people can stroll around here, so that you can walk from here across this market, past the Garnisonkirche creative centre, across the Brandenburg Gate to Sanssouci, so that there is a real flow of people. I am firmly convinced that it will happen. We are still in the middle phase, but we are already seeing a lot, which is great, and when I come from an event at the Nikolaikirche in the evening and see this atmosphere here, illuminated – it's breathtaking.

Dr. Jörg Kwapis

Educational scientist, chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Anti-Militaristic Traditions in the City of Potsdam.

Dr Jörg Kwapis talks to Ute Meesmann about the restoration of the historic centre and the atmosphere of the Old Market Square.

JK: I come from Thorgau and moved to Potsdam in 1989.

UM: In 1989 before or after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

JK: Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the summer before the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

UM: For me, the Old Market Square is...

JK: For me, the Old Market is – I‘m just looking at it – a place I walk through and cycle through. It's not a place where I spend time. And I don't feel like spending time there either. At any time of year. In winter it's draughty and in summer it's sweltering.

UM: In my view, the restoration of the historic layout was...

JK: That was decided in 1990, at one of the first freely elected city council meetings. For me, the decision to restore the historic centre was ideologically motivated. They jumped from one ideology to the next and [...] from an aesthetic point of view, I also consider it a restorative, even reactionary decision [...] to want to reclaim this historic city centre. And in terms of urban planning, it's simply a stupid decision. And just how stupid it is can be seen here in this square in particular – stupid in several respects. [...] It is not a place to feel comfortable, it is not a place to live, it has no quality of life. People who supported this decision at the time told me that it would have been one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. 

Well, they grew up in the GDR, so they probably weren't in Europe at the time. Did they also claim later that I don't see that it was one of the most beautiful places in Europe and will be again? In any case, it has not gained anything in terms of its quality of life without trees.

I have to justify this stupid argument further. The restoration of the historic city centre includes the reconstruction of the city palace and the Garrison Church. Both buildings have been promoted with flimsy and dishonest arguments. I consider it highly questionable and, from a democratic point of view, a stupid decision to establish a state parliament, a democratically elected body, in a monarch's seat, which is also being rebuilt. If it had been there, it would have been settled with the state parliament, which would have been something else. But they are rebuilding the seat of a monarch, not just in the cube, but one-to-one from the outside, and then putting the state parliament in it.

I also consider it foolish on another level. A decision is made at a time when other considerations may have been taken into account, and one is unable to correct, adjust or deviate from this decision in any way. For me, this is also a sign of foolishness, if I can never question decisions once they have been made.

UM: What is the centre of Potsdam for you? 

JK: It's in various places. There's a centre in Potsdam-West, there's Luisenplatz, which definitely has something of a centre about it, with the Brandenburg Gate, there's a centre at Nauener Tor, there's Babelsberg with its own centre, and the other districts also have their own centres. So for me, there isn't one centre of this city. Perhaps there is a point of arrival in this city, which is the main railway station, but well, that's not such a great place either.

UM: So you never considered the market to be the centre?

JK: No, never. It could possibly have become one if a different approach had been taken here in terms of planning and consideration. There were many suggestions and ideas from the technical college's architecture department to design it differently in architectural and, above all, functional terms, to bring the university here to the city, either in its entirety or with some of its buildings, depending on what would have been feasible. That would have been a different design, and I believe it would have been possible to recreate or achieve a kind of centre character. As it is, it's a dead space, that's how I feel about it.

UM: You created a wonderful election poster for the Other Party entitled “Death Valley”. What was the basic idea behind it?

JK: Well, it's the voter group Die Andere (The Others); we're not a party. Death Valley [...has] deadly temperatures because the sun's rays are so intense, reflecting the heat, you can't stay there. Or you'll die of thirst. And we see this place as one of the heat hotspots in this city. Anyone who has stood there in summer knows what we mean. And the other thing is that it lacks any form of life, so to speak.

UM: What would be your vision for the Old Market Square?

JK: Well. Could have been. Now it's built up. […] I would have liked to see something different, a different form of architecture throughout the city centre. I don't consider the reconstruction of buildings in the historical layout to be an […] urban utopia, or even a vision; it's backward-looking. I would have liked something different, but now it's there. In my opinion, what is needed now is revitalisation, greening, so that people can really linger there. Why not put a group of trees around the obelisk in the square with seating and places to stop for refreshments? Why not even a stage? I can just see this stage here, the temporary one.

You could build a permanent stage, a small permanent stage. That could be something where you could attract musicians and so on. I think there are many possibilities, at least that's how I imagine it. The centre of the city must be enlivened by the people who live in the city, for the people who live in the city and, of course, for those who come from outside. So what else could be done to bring a little more life here? First of all, add greenery and shade. It could also be a completely different shade construction, in the form of sun sails, which don't necessarily have to be made of fabric. There are various things that probably clash with the historical design. But these breaks are necessary, in my view. We won't get anywhere if we just reconstruct everything as it once was.

Carsten Linke

Civil rights activist and publicist, head of a film, poster and flyer archive on city politics since 1988 at the Computer Centre (CC) and supervisor of the alternative learning space Garrison Church at the CC; member of the Cultural Committee

Carsten Linke in conversation with Dr. Uta Kumlehn and Ute Meesmann about his motivation to be politically active in Potsdam's city centre – from the late 1980s to the present day.

UK: The first question is easy: I come from…

CL: I'm originally from Dessau and have lived here in Potsdam since January 1988.

UK: And the Old Market Square is for you…

CL: A problem. A symbol of the reconstruction of history, of urban development, and certainly not the heart of the city. If it were, it would be a case for pathology.

UK: And the actual centre of Potsdam is for you…

CL: That's Brandenburg Street, from Unity Square to Luisenplatz; that's the centre of the city.

UK: The reclaiming of the historical centre, what does that mean to you?

CL: That's a problem. On the one hand, it's unnecessary in my view, because a city should develop further and not regress. It's full of contradictions; it shows how money influences urban development through the actions of individuals. It also points to this idea of reconstruction: politically, historically, and in terms of urban planning. As I said, this is a real problem for me, including the way opinions were formed back then about how the Old Market should develop, based on the citizen survey, which wasn't fair. These are all details that explain why I'm not positive about how things have turned out.

UK: And your vision for the Old Market Square?

CL: That's quite difficult for me to define because the city's political leadership is clinging to outdated principles. It's an 18th-century urban development, heavily influenced by the Baroque style; there isn't a single tree in this market square, and these are the kinds of things that simply don't fit into the 21st century. We have a climate adaptation problem, especially in urban areas, and that simply includes greening the space, even bringing water into the city centre, and things like that. But this market square—the political group "Die Andere" (The Other) aptly described it as the "Death Valley" of Potsdam, and in some ways, that's what it is.

UK: You said that you moved to Potsdam in 1988 because of the theatre.

CL: Exactly, because I had finished my studies (or not quite finished yet; I still had to do an internship) and at the time I sought contact with the Hans Otto Theatre, because I had wanted to study theatre engineering beforehand, but I wasn't able to complete my degree. I then studied electrical engineering and wanted to start as technical director at the Hans Otto Theatre afterwards; that was the plan. However, it became clear in the winter of 1987/88 that the new building would take several more years to complete. The foundation stone wasn't laid until September 1, 1989. Therefore, I had to find another job, which I did. Later, my desire to become technical director there faded. The opportunity no longer existed because the theatre kept postponing and re-staffing the position over the years. It would have been the "Blechbüchse" (a nickname for the theatre) and eventually the Schiffbauergasse (a more informal venue), and we couldn't have waited that long.

UK: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, were you involved in the debate about whether the theatre should remain standing or be demolished, and what to do with the entire square?

CL: Not just after the fall of the Wall, but even before. I co-founded the ARGUS group, which was a leading voice in the city during the Wende (the period of political and social change in East Germany), and within ARGUS there was also a debate about what should happen to this unfinished theatre building. One faction—as we always call it, the Baroque faction—was in favor of demolishing the unfinished theatre so that the City Palace could be built, while other factions were in favor of preserving the building's structure and maintaining its existing fabric, but definitely against demolition. Opinions were already somewhat divided at that time, and later we saw what would happen: all the modernizers left ARGUS. ARGUS, together with the New Forum, later passed the corresponding resolutions for demolition in the city council. ARGUS then passed the resolutions for demolition in the city council. [Please cut out my breathing at 06:36 if it hasn't been done already, thank you!]

UK: After things didn't work out for you at the Hans Otto Theatre, you were employed at the Staudenhof, is that correct?

CL: No, I was in the energy sector. The Staudenhof renovation was a hobby, like many other things in the following years. We took over the Staudenhof from the city as a gallery in 1995. We founded the Association for Unstable Media back then with Karl Wedemeyer and Thomas Kumlehn and then created the gallery there. The first exhibition was about Krampnitz. The Soviet troops had just withdrawn, and it was a fascinating topic to exhibit. We redesigned the café because the computer room was upstairs. My part was to advance all the technical installations at the Staudenhof so that it would be functional. A bookstore also moved in at the beginning, from which the Skript bookstore and an antiquarian bookshop later emerged.

UK: During our research, we noticed that this city council resolution for a careful return to the historically developed city plan was passed directly in 1990, and that got us wondering, weren't people more concerned at that time – personal matters, a new job, or family? What was that like?

CL: First of all, at that time there was only a very small group involved in local politics. Even when it came to monitoring the municipal elections, there was still considerable interest. Then the GDR collapsed, the Wall opened, and naturally, most people had completely different concerns or interests, let's put it that way. That was actually the perfect window of opportunity for a small group of people to bring about this resolution, always emphasizing that the dictatorship was over, that they were distancing themselves strongly from the recent past, and that they were using this to steer the reconstruction in a new direction. That was the narrow window of opportunity. I believe that two years later, the resolution wouldn't even have been passed. But within that short timeframe, and also considering the experience of the Storm House being demolished in the summer of '89—that is, the entire row of houses being torn down—and seeing how the buildings were decaying, they used that window of opportunity to make the resolution. There wasn't even much discussion about it. It wasn't as if there was a debate at all.UK: In the mid-2010s, you launched a citizens' initiative, "No Sell-Off of Potsdam's City Centre." Was that a reaction to the demolition of the University of Applied Sciences?

CL: The decision to demolish the University of Applied Sciences and the Staudenhof Hotel had already been made, but the connection existed before that—in 1999, the decision was made to demolish the Mercure Hotel, and then came the decision for the other two buildings. As a result, the "Rethinking Potsdam's City Centre" initiative was founded in 2015. And then we pursued this citizens' initiative.

UK: And your goals at the time were to preserve these buildings or to repurpose them for the future.

CL: Exactly. So, definitely preserve it, always redesign it, there was already a certain backlog of renovations at that time, which can be explained by the fact that nobody was investing, because the decision had already been made to demolish the buildings or remove them later, and then we presented various concepts, especially for the university of applied sciences with greening and similar things.

CL: I think most people understood that the hotel shouldn't be demolished. That was also where the most support from the citizens came from. We also asked about their motivations during the petition drive, and we heard the most amazing stories about the Mercure, like, "I got married there," "I had my confirmation there," or "We celebrated this and that there." So, the connection to the Mercure was particularly strong. Of course, there was also a strong connection to the university of applied sciences, with everyone who had studied there or otherwise been involved. There was less of a connection to the Staudenhof; very few people could identify with it, which makes sense, as it was essentially just an apartment building with an exhibition space. Nevertheless, many felt it was wrong to remove the green space in the city. That was a major point of contention, for example—this little Staudenhof garden with its water feature, which many had experienced as a positive thing. This was another flare-up of the demolition of Brauhausberg, specifically all the water features there. Many felt it was a violation, and this resurfaced, so the motivation to sign the petition was very high. We gathered enough signatures in a very short time. While it wasn't ultimately legally binding because the court found certain procedural issues, we were satisfied with the outcome. It also had a lasting effect. The design and the tender for the building plots changed significantly as a result of our intervention.

CL: Our victory came in the sense that the entire area was already being marketed as a single property at a Munich real estate fair at the time—a single investor developing the entire historic city centre. That was essentially the plan. Through all these initiatives and events, we were able to prevent this and ensure that a large portion of Potsdam's housing cooperatives and properties were sold to individuals from the city. This sale was based on a concept, not on the highest bid, which is typical for municipal properties. The focus was on the specific needs and interests of each building, and this was weighted more heavily than the price. I consider it a success that we prevented the worst, even if we couldn't change the outcome.

UK: And back then you also did quite a lot of events in the Old Market Square. You set up a living room, did a chalk art activity with children, and I think one project was called "Make Room!" We initially considered calling our exhibition that, but then decided against it because it seemed a bit too bold, and we also realized that "Make Room!" had already been used quite a bit.

CL: Twice at the computer centre, too. We even used it as the title for a workshop once. These regular events in the Old Market Square were important because they allowed us to connect with visitors to the Barberini Museum, not just with Potsdam residents, but also with tourists. So it was actually quite beneficial.

CL: We also initiated the relay race; there were already many events around the Old Market Square.

UK: You were also awarded a certificate for your volunteer work.

UK: Commitment to the development of the neighborhoods.

CL: Exactly.

UK: Was that a bit cynical or ---

CL: That's the question of how you look back. I see it as a success that we changed certain things, that the area is being developed more in a more urban way – others felt really humiliated, insulted. It also never found an official place anywhere, never hung on the wall by some group. Firstly, such groups are temporary, and with 'City for All,' there's no space for an association; the certificate is still sitting on my shelf at home, gathering dust. Many felt annoyed by that, not taken seriously.

UK: Let's go a little further into the Lustgarten. A few years ago, there was a great film there, "The People's Meadow." We asked NDR (North German Broadcasting) if we could show it at the Filmstation [it is not in the filmstation].

CL: I have it on my laptop too.

UK: How did that come about? How did NDR become aware of you?

CL: Well, first there was that awful proposal to demolish the Mercure Hotel, and then there was a proposal from the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) to name the cleared area "The People's Meadow"—again, something rather patriotic. And then we thought about who we could approach to get it publicized. It's quite satirical. And then we thought of Extra3, because there weren't that many satirical programs dealing with political content at the time. Böhmermann wasn't around then, so we later got him involved with the Hohenzollerns, which worked out. Extra3 was a good place to start.

UM: What do you envision the Old Market Square looking like in 20 years?

CL: Green, heavily landscaped. It doesn't matter, like all the others. We're not going to tear down the buildings anymore. Extensive greenery, more like a garden. Now, as compensation, the Steubenplatz area is being considered, which I would have liked to rename Helene Bürger Square. Helene Bürger was shot during the Kapp Putsch. And that was the only revolutionary act by that population. Otherwise, they were always on the courtyard side, or wherever they dared to rebel. And then several people were shot, including a woman over there. And that happened right there on the square. And if you create that square in front, it will, of course, have no effect on the Old Market Square. 

I work in the field of climate policy, so I do climate model analysis and all that. We also create heat stress maps for Potsdam; we made some years ago and now we have completely new ones. There are hotspots, the main one being the Old Market Square. Then it extends through the historic city centre because there's a lack of trees there, so it's a problem at its base. It continues as far as Breite Straße. And then the second hotspot is next to Babelsberg train station. These are the hottest places the city has to offer. And it's completely unappealing to stand outside here in the summer.

UM: Does the Old Market Square have a chance of ever becoming the heart of the city again?

CL: I don't think so. I don't think the surrounding institutions are the pulse of the city or anything like that. A church, for example, is a place for a small group, again on Sundays or Saturdays, whenever they happen to get together. The Barberini is a transit point for visitors coming to the city. I doubt whether this new centre will really be vibrant. It's a deviation from the original plan that all the courtyards are open. The fact that you can walk through the quarters and have green spaces isn't something that can be changed. Neither are the courtyards. You can see that right now with the new building right next to the library. So, it's not an invitation, not a real invitation. A state parliament certainly isn't. On the contrary, a state parliament actually has a restricted zone that can be established at any time. Too many people aren't good for the state parliament either. And the Potsdam Museum is, after all, just a museum. So, from my perspective, there's no one really making an impact across the board. Except for a few coffee chairs or something, but that can't be it. And that's why I don't think it can be some kind of heartbeat-like thing. 

Earlier times were really lovely. I used to live on Friedrich-Engels-Straße, and for the first few days I'd cross the Lange Brücke (Long Bridge) and then this open square. For me, the most beautiful thing was that this open space, with its greenery, allowed the mist from the river to drift into the city. It wasn't cut off by buildings or other structures. Now the river is just on its own, like a canal, really. Before, it was a riverside landscape. You couldn't walk there every spring. I found that very beautiful. But that's simply gone now. The open spaces are getting smaller.

Monika Schulz-Fieguth

Graduate photographer and Potsdam native, active in the citizens' initiative "Mittschön" and spokesperson for the "Save the Lustgarten" initiative

Monika Schulz-Fieguth in conversation with Dr Uta Kumlehn about the "Mittschön" citizens' initiative's involvement in the construction of the state parliament building, which incorporates the historic facade of the city palace, and the potential of the Old Market Square as a cultural centre of Potsdam.

UK: You are a native of Potsdam, have known the city for more than half a century, and, in addition to your impressive portrait and landscape photography, have repeatedly explored Potsdam's architectural heritage. In an interview, you mentioned playing in the ruins of the city palace as a child, meaning your connection to the historic centre has existed since the 1950s. Where do you see the roots of your photographic engagement with the Old Market Square?

MSF: The wounds we saw here, left by the war – not only the war, but later Walter Ulbricht inflicted new wounds. Capturing that photographically was, of course, a challenge, but I was also too young back then. I was an apprentice. I was present at the demolition of the Garrison Church. I remember that moment very clearly. I was there with a fellow photographer; afterwards, we drove to the Teufelssee (Devil's Lake) and wept. The Garrison Church, the tower, that was our community. How it was blown up, that was terrible.

It all really began with the fall of the Berlin Wall. With reunification came the hope that this place would regain its former beauty. A community, an association, formed immediately: the Friends of the Reconstruction of the City Palace, later known as Mitteschön. I belong to the Free Citizens of Mitteschön. From then on, it also became photographically interesting for me. We searched for any remaining traces of the past, and that's how I found the fragments of the City Palace in the Potsdam Schirrhof. It was a photographic paradise for me. I photographed the fragments, which had lain in the sand for 50 years, weathered and overgrown with grass – it was fantastic to photograph them. And we also made these sculptures publicly accessible. We showed what was still there at the demonstrations when we were working on the reconstruction of the City Palace; that's when these photographs became more important. Just as other artists showed their drawings, I showed my photographs of the sculptures.

UK: Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the foundation stone for the theatre building on the Old Market Square was laid. Did you already think at that time: Oh dear, now it's all over, now it's all over?

MSF: Yes. I have to say that's what I thought. With that concrete block, we thought, now all hope is gone. And then the fall of the Wall came. What luck! The concrete box disappeared in no time. What came next was, of course, a temporary solution; it was clear that it was temporary. From then on, hope was rekindled.

UK: You just mentioned the Mitteschön initiative. How did that come about? Were you already acquainted and then joined forces as like-minded individuals, or how should one imagine it?

MSF: For the most part, we knew each other. We went to school together, and for a while, we even went to kindergarten together with Barbara Kuster. But we already had the Friends of the Reconstruction of the City Palace association, and that's where Mitteschön (a local initiative) began. More and more people came together there and said, "Yes, I'd like to be involved. It would be wonderful if we could make it happen and get the parliament building right here in the centre." And so we grew bigger and bigger, meeting almost every Monday at the Fortuna Portal, which was already there, and fighting for the reconstruction of the City Palace.

UK: You mentioned at another time that the discussion arose at that point about whether to completely rebuild the City Palace, that is, the new state parliament building, with its historical facade. There were also considerations to rebuild only the two wings facing the square next to the Fortuna Portal with the Knobelsdorff facade, and to build the rest in a modern style. How did you react to that at the time?

MSF: We knew that various architects worldwide were working on this project. We always fought for the historical facade. That was our sole concern. That's what we stood for. We were incredibly fortunate, and the city was incredibly fortunate, that Hasso Plattner also fell in love with this city. He didn't yet have a place to live here in Potsdam and was staying at the Bavarian House. He was an avid newspaper reader and learned about the citizens' initiative fighting for the City Palace, so he asked Ms. Schmack [Gertrud Schmack, Managing Partner of the Hotel Bavarian House] what the citizens wanted, and she explained it to him. As far as I know, shortly before the international architects presented their proposals, Hasso Plattner said, "I'll give 20 million if the facade is rebuilt historically." And that's exactly what happened. We can be eternally grateful to this man, just as we must be eternally grateful to Günther Jauch, because they are the two initiators of what has been created and is being created here.

UK: Were you involved in the planning for the facade construction as an initiative?

MSF: Not so much, but we had determined that the roof shouldn't be made of copper for financial reasons, and so we all came together again and demonstrated again, saying we needed a copper roof; anything else was simply out of the question. We called Plattner again, along with Ms. Schmack. He said: What more do you want? We need another 2 million or so for the copper roof. You'll get it.

UK: Back then, you didn't just demonstrate with candles, photos, and singing in front of the Fortuna Portal, but there were also actions that involved the entire market. These were dinner demonstrations.

MSF: That was a fantastic thing. We realized that we were lacking in numbers. We really needed more people who followed our path, our ideas, and what better way to do that than with a dinner demonstration? We had a lot of support, of course, with benches, everything that goes with it – film equipment, screens, and so on. More than a thousand people came together. We were lucky with the weather, and we showed films, gave presentations, held discussions, and played music. It also became clear that so many people from Potsdam were truly in favor of this reconstruction of the City Palace. And they sat with us and celebrated this idea.

MSF: I believe the citizens' initiative "Mitteschön" (Beautiful Centre) is just one of many people who have been actively involved. You can see what has come of it, and above all, what I absolutely must emphasize, the combination of the historic buildings and modern architecture. I'm surprised how well it works here in Potsdam. What we see here is unique. I sometimes walk through the market square and think, this will be a wonderful place. It's not finished yet.

UK: Exactly. There's another construction site a little further on, the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden), where you were the spokesperson for the "Save the Lustgarten" initiative. What plans did you have there that you wanted to implement?

MSF: Well, there was the White Fleet, of course, which wanted to appropriate this park, the oldest garden, and build an administrative building on it. That was a thorn in our side, unimaginable, the oldest garden with an administrative building – we really demonstrated against it. We even sought help from international architects. Someone from Switzerland, who supported us a lot, and we held demonstrations, trying to convince the public that this had to be prevented. We succeeded to some extent. The administrative building was never built. I think what the city councillors decided on immediately after reunification – that cautious approach to the old conditions – was exactly the right thing. That combination of historic buildings, landmark structures and modern architecture was also our aim. We didn’t want a complete 1:1 reconstruction of how it used to be – that’s obvious, after all; it’s a completely different use now, we live in a completely different era – but exactly as it has now turned out with the landmark buildings, that was entirely in our interest and we couldn’t understand why anyone would be against it.

UK: The block where the University of Applied Sciences used to stand has been completed; behind it, Block IV around the SLB is still under construction, and also in Block V, where the Staudenhof used to stand, which was demolished last year. Are you still involved there as an initiative?

MSF: We are, of course, trying to get involved there. We also know that conditions have become tougher; funds have become scarcer and construction costs are rising. Many things that were originally planned can no longer be built at all; there is still a great deal to consider. And not everything has been finalised yet. I’m glad that the Staudenhof is gone, along with the University of Applied Sciences and the Institute for Teacher Training. We’ve had so many guests here at the Alter Markt, I’ve been able to show them the splendour, and everyone has said: ‘But that’s going to be demolished soon, isn’t it?’ That really doesn’t belong here at all. Now it’s gone, and we can see how the space has been restored. I think the reality of it will convince everyone now. 

Eleonore Schwarze 

Eleonore Schwarze, a Potsdam native, has lived at the Old Market Square since 1961 and is actively involved in various volunteer activities, including with the Friends of the Potsdam Museum, the Oberlin Workshops, and the Karl Marx Shared Living Community, which provides care for people with dementia.

Eleonore Schwarze speaks with Ute Meesmann about the recent past and present of the Old Market Square.

UM: The first question is: I come from...

ES: I come from Potsdam. 

UM: Where exactly?

ES: I come from Potsdam. I first lived on Berliner Straße and, since 1961, at Am Alten Markt 5.

UM: So you’ve actually lived here at Am Alten Markt since ’61?

ES: I’ve lived here since December 1961. I’ve lived elsewhere for a while in between, but otherwise continuously.

UM: The second question is: What does the Alter Markt mean to me?

ES: To me, the Alter Markt is actually an empty square. People always used to say it was the centre. Then they said it wasn’t the centre. Actually, it isn’t the centre, because it’s on the edge. In GDR times there were events there, which was quite nice. Otherwise, it was an empty square. After reunification, there are the new buildings all around it – new buildings with old façades – but still. It feels a bit bare. Trams used to run through here, too. And none of that is there anymore. Everything has changed. 

UM: In my view, the restoration of the historic centre was?

ES: The historic centre… Actually, this isn’t really the historic centre. The historic centre would actually be Brandenburger Straße. 

UM: That’s the fourth question. For me, the centre of Potsdam is… The restoration – that’s what it comes down to now, given that this decision was made here.

ES: I think it’s good that the City Palace is being used as the state parliament. It has a function. It’s not residential space. [unintelligible…] building. The Barberini with the museum, too. That’s wonderful. It’s very, very nice. And the Potsdam Museum here. That could be a bit bigger. Definitely. The fact that the streets haven’t been named after the old streets. Now they’re women’s names, but nobody knows them. People only ever know them as: that’s Schlossstraße, Schwertfegerstraße, Kaiserstraße. Those names are more familiar to everyone in Potsdam.

UM: But you also remember the square from GDR times. 

ES: Yes, exactly.

UM: Was it different then, livelier? 

ES: No, we used to have Christmas markets here on the square too. Yes, that was wonderful. It was always very pleasant in terms of the people there. There was a children’s carousel and lovely stalls and a fairy-tale forest. That was very, very lovely. I can still remember that very well. Otherwise, as I said, the square used to be a bit higher. It’s been lowered. I can remember that there were excavations here, and they found old wooden roads. Very interesting.

UM: So, to ask again: where do you think the centre of Potsdam is? 

ES: The centre of Potsdam is actually Brandenburger Straße. That’s sort of the centre. Though you could always argue about it a bit. Well, because the palace is here and all that, it’s actually a bit on the outskirts because of the Havel. It’s kind of slipped to the edge. And Brandenburger Straße, that’s sort of the centre. Bassinplatz, Brandenburger…

UM: Even though you’ve lived here on this square for so many years, you’ve never experienced it as the centre?

ES: No, not at all. Actually, I didn’t feel it was the centre.

UM: And then one more question: my vision for the Alter Markt?

ES: Well, as I said, that it should be revitalised, perhaps with a small market, and that the Christmas market might also be brought to the Alter Markt. We’ve already started with the cultural festivals on the Alter Markt. That’s always wonderful. That should be encouraged further. And perhaps put a few flowers there too, a few planters, to make it a bit greener. Because otherwise it looks too bare to me. I also find those flower beds in front of the Old Town Hall very, very beautiful. You could leave them as they are. That would be lovely. 

UM: We’re working on it.

ES: Great.

Hanne-Lore Wildt 

Potsdam native, born in 1923 in the Klingner House at Alter Markt 17 [Ms. Wildt is currently 102 years old and will be attending the exhibition opening!]

Hanne-Lore Wildt speaks with Ute Meesmann about her time at Alter Markt before and after 1945.

HLW: I was born on Christmas Day, December 26, 1923, at number 9 Schloßstraße.

UM: What did your father do for a living?

HLW: At that time, my father worked for Deutsche Bank. 

UM: What is your connection to the Old Market Square?

HLW: In 1930, we moved into my mother's parents' apartment, where she was born. The apartment was still furnished with all the furniture she had inherited from her parents. And I had the room where she had grown up. However, I later had to share it with my sister, who was 12 years younger than me…

UM: And which building is that on the Old Market Square?

HLW: Number 17. The corner building on Schloßstraße [today: Anna-Zielenziger-Straße].

UM: You moved in in 1930.

HLW: Until 45. Until the house was destroyed.

UM: I read that you weren't in Potsdam in April 1945.

HLW: I wasn't here. I've been in Potsdam since 1940. I did a two-year rural domestic science apprenticeship in Schleswig-Holstein, on the Eiderstedt peninsula, and then spent a year in the Women's Labor Service in the Warthegau region.

UM: Okay, so we're talking about 1945 now. You were in Schleswig-Holstein. When did you come back?

HLW: 1950.

UM: And then back to Potsdam?

HLW: Yes, my brother got married and he wanted me to be there for his wedding.

UM: Yes. Where did you live then?

HLW: With my parents. But I left again right away? I wanted to work. 1950 was still quite soon after the war. I couldn't find work here. They wanted to put me in housework. But since I'd trained as an economist, I said, no, I don't want to do that anymore. I've had enough. Besides, I was supposed to go to the bakery where the daughter worked, and I'd always seen her strutting around on her bike. I thought, you're not going there. And then the employment office told me I'd have to shovel coal, empty wagons for the Russians. We had a neighbor in the building who did that, but she was two heads taller than me. She said, that's not for you. And so I ended up in a machine tool factory—no, first I had a seasonal job in the forest, planting pine trees as a forestry worker. After that, we had to plant beeches, oaks, and birches. And that was a seasonal job from March 6th until almost the end of April, until May 1st, so until April 28th.

HLW: But we couldn't live at the Old Market anymore. My parents lived at – back then it was still called Charlottenstraße 1. I lived with them there too. But the Old Market looked so sad and it always really hurt me. My brother said he'd been down in the cellar and found some things. But otherwise, we didn't get anything out of it, and my mother was supposed to pay for the rubble and clear it away. And then she got a bill from the city council for street cleaning. I have that bill; if I'd known you were coming, I would have saved it for you. I only tore it up a while ago. We got it from the land registry office once, when my brother and I were there. The colleague was kind enough to bring us what was there. Yes, here's another letter for your mother. I said, "What does it say?" Well, we're not allowed to open that. And we didn't open it then, but we looked at it and saw that the city council had sent my mother a bill. In 1945. Even though she had no money. Well, and then the property was confiscated. So we no longer had any rights to it.

UM: Did your parents own the house?

HLW: Yes, my great-grandfather apparently gave it to his son as a wedding present with my grandmother.

UM: My colleagues said there are a few questions about the Old Market that we ask everyone. For example, what does the Old Market mean to you personally?

HLW: Well, I thought the Old Market was beautiful and it was nice and quiet, even though the tram ran through it in all directions; almost all the routes went through the Old Market because many people went down to the train station. And then there was a market on the Old Market on Wednesdays and for a while on Saturdays at Bassinplatz.

UM: The centre of Potsdam, where is that for you?

HLW: Is that supposed to be Potsdam's centre, the Old Market Square? No.

UM: Tell me, where do you feel the centre of the city is?

HLW: That's Brandenburg Street and Friedrich-Ebert Street.

UM: Not the Old Market Square?

HLW: The Old Market Square isn't the centre right now.

Films 

(only available in German)

Film excerpt: "Potsdam," Amateur Film Studio Haus der Lehrer Potsdam, 1961, Potsdam Film Museum (1:05 min.)

Film excerpt: "Potsdam," Amateur Film Studio Haus der Lehrer Potsdam, 1971–1973, Potsdam Film Museum (1:37 min.)

Film excerpt: "Potsdam," Amateur Film Studio Haus der Lehrer Potsdam, 1985, Potsdam Film Museum (1:33 min.)

Film excerpt: " Hürdenlauf" (Hurdle Race), MfG-Studio Zernitz, 1985, Potsdam Film Museum (0:50 min.)

Film: "Potsdam – A City to Fall in Love With! A film by Olaf Thiede and Olaf Gutowski for Mitteschön," 2017. With kind permission of the Förderverein Wiedergewinnung der Potsdamer Mitte e.V. (Association for the Regeneration of Potsdam's City Center) (10:15 min.)

Film: "10 Years of Mitteschön. A Success Story of Civic Engagement for the Regeneration of Potsdam's Historic Center," Photo film: Hans Oleak, 2017. Courtesy of the Förderverein Wiedergewinnung der Potsdamer Mitte e.V. (8:41 min.)

Demolition of the University of Applied Sciences at the Alter Markt in Potsdam. A video by MAZonline, 2017/18 (5:54 min.)

Demolition of the University of Applied Sciences in its final stages. A video by André Bauer, Märkische Allgemeine, 2018 (1:31 min.)

Film: "PerspektivWechsel“ (Perspective Shift), Yeni Harkányi, 2018 (15:43 min.)

Film: " Kurz vor Schluss“ (Just Before the End), Nikolas Ripka, Jens Uwe Drößiger, and Michael Dustin Kummer, 2017 (15:50 min.)

SCHROTT ODER CHANCE (JACK OR OPPORTUNITY) - 01 Excerpt - Teacher Training College - © 414films, 2019 (0:49 min.)

SCHROTT ODER CHANCE (JACK OR OPPORTUNITY) - 02 Excerpt - Reconstruction of the Old Market Square - © 414films, 2019 (1:52 min.)

SCHROTT ODER CHANCE (JACK OR OPPORTUNITY) - 03 Excerpt - The Past in Portions - © 414films, 2019 (1:41 min.)

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