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ABSTRACT
The Berlin Wall was built three times: in 1961, in the mid 1960s, and again from the mid 1970s onwards. This article attempts to interpret each manifestation as political architecture providing insights into the mindset and intentions of those who built it. Each phase of the Wall had a different rationale, beyond the straightforward purpose of stopping the citizens of East Germany from leaving their own country and forcing them to suffer under communist rule. The deliberately brutal-looking first Wall was a propaganda construct not originally intended to exist for more than a few months. The functional but dreary Wall of the mid 60s was calculated to have a longer lifespan, but within few years it, too, became an embarrassment for the East German rulers. Yearning for international recognition, they demanded a smoother-looking, better designed Wall-supporting their fiction that this was "a national border like any other."
KEYWORDS
Berlin Wall; German Democratic Republic (GDR); Socialist Unity Party (SED); Walter Ulbricht; border; propaganda; Erich Honecker
"We cannot not communicate," declared the psychologist Watzlawick. This also applies to architecture. Buildings do not serve practical purposes alone: those who build also reveal something about themselves-often more than they intend. This is particularly true for the Berlin Wall, though one may hesitate to regard this singularly unattractive edifice as a work of architecture. Indeed, this understandable hesitation may be the reason that, until now, no attempt has ever been made to read and interpret the architectural language of the Wall.1 In a fortification such as the Berlin Wall one would certainly expect firmness and immutability: a definite physical form able to withstand the test of time. On the contrary, it is actually one of the defining qualities of this border that it has never stayed the same and has, in fact, displayed an amazing tendency towards mutation. Throughout the twenty-eight years of its existence the Berlin Wall took on three totally different manifestations, each of which bears witness to its changing role. While the fundamental rationale for the Wall-as a fortification set up by the communist rulers of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to prevent their own citizens from escaping to West Berlin- remained the same during these times, the messages it expressed via its construction and...