On the terrace of Das Minsk, Potsdam you stand before a sweeping panorama of the city's downtown; a panorama that not only stretches back over Stüler, Persius and Schinkel's St Nikolai Church, an instructive unification of the three, all the way up to the summit of the Pfingstberg with its Italian renaissance influenced Belvedere, thus two easily read indicators of Potsdam's royal Prussian past, but a panorama that also includes an awful lot of Plattenbauten, prefabricated buildings, primarily prefabricated apartment blocks, easily associated with and located in Potsdam's DDR biography.
Plattenbauten that the standard viewing of not just Potsdam but (neigh on) any city centre with a long and prestigious (hi)story tends to ignore.
With Wohnkomplex: Art and Life in Plattenbau Das Minsk, Potsdam, bring the Plattenbau to the centre of the urban narrative and thereby enable an alternative reading.......
A presentation that brings the Plattenbau to the centre of the urban narrative via projects by a roster of 22 international artists which, who, explore the Plattenbau from a wide variety of perspectives and in an equally wide variety of media.
A variety of perspectives that means for all the Plattenbau — the Platte to use its common name of which we very much approve — is dominant in the exhibition title, not all the presented works feature, refer to, quote, the Platte directly, rather numerous concern themselves primarily with the wider reality, the wider context, the wider -komplex, the wider material -komplex and wider immaterial -komplex of the title, in which specific or generic Platten stand. An extended view of the Platte beyond the obvious of the (more or less) towering physical structure that one can call art.
Or architecture.
An architecture that over centuries was essentially construction plus art, before, in the course of those post 1939-45 War decades in which the Platte established itself as a concept, it increasingly cast its art aside, lost its distance to the user and became not only utilitarian but social, became representative through use rather than representative through show, became a component of communities and, at least theoretically, became a component of democracy rather than the facilitator of autocracy it had long been. In how far that last statement is and was true on the ground and not just in the theory is very much open to debate, a debate which would bring us back to elements of the Radio smow Suburbia Playlist, if a debate for another day. For, and regardless of your answer to that question, as Wohnkomplex: Art and Life in Plattenbau neatly demonstrates, the shift away from art as a component of architecture, and for all that a great many bemoaned and bemoan the lose of that direct artistic in individual works, rendered constructions, urban spaces, urban planning, something to approach and engage with artistically, enabled, empowered one to approach and engage with constructions, urban spaces, urban planning artistically, rather than simply being something to recreate, capture, imitate, artistically. A shift, inarguably, also related to wider shifts in art in the course of the 20th century, but that would have been very difficult without the simultaneous shift in how the built environment is approached and the reformulations of definitions of 'architecture'.
Thus for all the curators claim Wohnkomplex is an art exhibition not an architecture exhibition, for our part we'd disagree with them, although not being in a position to even begin to consider doing so. But we're doing it nonetheless. It is an art exhibition. And an architecture exhibition.
An art exhibition and an architecture exhibition in dialogue.
An art exhibition and architecture exhibition that for all it is being presented in a city in the former DDR, in an institution founded to a large degree on a collection of works realised in the former DDR... convention dictates that at this juncture we should have used the term 'Ostmodern' rather than "works realised in the former DDR". But we can't. It's an appalling term. Just awful. Works produced in 1950s and 60s West German are 'Nachkriegsmodern', those produced in 1950s and 60s DDR are 'Ostmodern'. Why? Why can't those from the former east of the contemporary Germany be 'Nachkriegsmodern' and those from the former west of the contemporary Germany be 'Westmodern'? Where's the problem with the term 'Westmodern'? Other than the viewing of (hi)story inherent, explicit, in the term. As noted from Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, we need to desist from discussing the second half of the 20th century in Europe as an eastern part that is always labelled as such because it was 'different' and a western part that isn't because it wasn't. Was the standard. Arguably something the eastern part sought to emulate, but failed. Because of political indoctrination. 🙄 Language is important, the language we employ establishes connections and connotations, influences how we think and behave. Thus if you talk of 'Ostmodern' you must talk of 'Westmodern'; if you can't bring yourself to say or write 'Westmodern', stop talking about 'Ostmodern'. But the best option is just to stop relying on pigeonholes, they're not even useful for pigeons, pigeons hate holes........ so, rant over... back to the text...
...for all that Wohnkomplex is being presented in a city in the former DDR, in an institution based to a large degree on a collection of works realised in the former DDR, and features an awful lot of depictions of DDR era Platten both in the DDR and in the former DDR, as a presentation, as a body of work in discourse and dialogue with the viewer and with one another, Wohnkomplex is a presentation without borders, be they historic, geographic or temporal. Although, yes, there are moments that can only be in the DDR, or the former DDR as it exists today in reality and/or in popular prejudice/stereotype. But that ain't a criticism. It's unavoidable. And occasionally very welcome. Necessary even.
And a presentation without borders ostensibly located within the historic, geographic and temporal borders of the DDR that thus serves as a reminder that for all the Platte is closely, intimately, associated with the DDR, the origins of the Platte reach back to the 19th century and considerations of and research on industrialised construction against the background of the technological, material social et al developments of that period. And also reminds that in context of the so-called Formalism Debate of the DDR of the early 1950s, of the DDR's earliest years, the Platte was damned by the DDR authorities as a work of Imperialism unbefitting for a nation such as the DDR, as an insult to the hard working citizens of the DDR. Before, in the immediete wake of Stalin’s death in 1953, and the rapid cessation of the Formalism Debate he had stoked, the Platte became a key to solving the housing problems of that fledgling nation and its hard working citizens.
Had Stalin not died in 1953 vast swathes of the DDR may have resembled the first phase of Eisenhüttenstadt.
And a close, intimate association that means it can be all too easily forgotten, regularly is forgotten, that the Platte was just as regular a feature of the, then, West Germany as it was the, then, East Germany. As discussed by and from Die Neue Heimat (1950–1982). A Social Democratic Utopia and Its Buildings at The Architekturmuseum der TU München, the Neue Heimat housing association of the title constructed untold 100s of 1000s of (primarily) Platte apartments in (1950–1982)'s West Germany: from Stuttgart and Munich in the south to Hamburg and Bremen in the north, from Frankfurt in the west to Berlin in the (west) east. A construction programme that contained elements astoundingly similar to those of the DDR Platte, elements oft belaughed and mocked in context of the standardised DDR Platten, rarely so in context of the West Platte, and West German Platten which still stand today. Skip from Potsdam up to Berlin and you can engage with both the Platte (east) and the Platte (west). If you never have it is well worth doing. Enables a satisfying alternative viewing of Berlin.
And a Neue Heimat who in that mid-1950s period when the DDR was learning to embrace the Platte employed Ernst May as Chief Planner; an Ernst May who in the 1920s as head of the Neues Frankfurt programme played an important role in advancing positions on prefabricated construction in the decades before the 1939-45 War, and who as head of the so-called May Brigade played a key role in the urban planning and construction programmes of Stalin's 1930s Russia; Stalin's Russia before the rise of a Stalinist Realism that caused a change of a plan. A Stalinist Realism finding a contemporary echo in Trumpist Realism. Thus an Ernst May who just as easily could have been employed to the east of the Wall. In the late 1950s, but not the early 1950s. A point always worth reflecting on. As is the role of the unfairly overlooked and undervalued Bauhäusler Carl Fieger in the early development of the Platte (east), and by extrapolation the role in the early development of the Platte (east) of Bauhauses that stand today as a popular quintessence of good architecture; Bauhauses that were much more concerned with prefabricated industrial construction than the artistic white cube everyone lazily calls 'Bauhaus' today.
An early development of the Platte (east), one notes, despite the Formalism Debate. And a mention of prefabricated industrial construction that reminds that for all the primary focus is often on apartment blocks, the term Plattenbau refers to a construction method, not a typology of buildings; typologies are developed from the method.
Nor is the Platte an exclusively post 1939-45 War Germanic phenomenon, rather wherever you travel in Europe you'll encounter Platten from the 1950s, 60s, 70s... Even if you don't always see them, despite their presence in the panorama in font of you.
Thus as a geographically and historically and temporally borderless exploration of the Platte in a city with an ever present reminder of the DDR Platte, Wohnkomplex is also an open invitation to challenge how you view Platten. To challenge why you don't see the Platten when standing before a sweeping panorama.
And thereby to challenge why you see the DDR when confronted by a Platte.
Or put another way, and coming back to the noxious 'Ostmodern', Wohnkomplex is an invitation to challenge the preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes, positive or negative, you've brought with you into the exhibition.
An important role of any and every art exhibition Wohnkomplex satisfyingly achieves.
As a presentation approached by its curators as an art exhibition Wohnkomplex is very much a space to find your own way through; you're very much left to find your own conversation with the featured works, with the positions and perspectives therein, to locate those discourses that most interest you, to jump in and see where you come out. If you come out.
And as presentation if offers a variety of entry points, some more accessible than others, but all worthy of seeking to approach.
For our part we spent an inordinate amount of time with, and amongst others, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt's 1970s Typewritings which employ typewriter script as the basis for 2D objects that formally remind of Platten, deliberately so as underscored by the undated work Hausbau, House Construction, whose roof is spelt from the letters h,a,u,s,b,a, and u, and thus works that stand very much as an ultimate expression of a machine production, machine reproduction, in construction, that was not only demanded by the realities of the post 1939-45 War Europe in which so many Platten arose, but that remains a vision of the 1920s that, to this day, hasn't quite been achieved. As does the very real demand globally for housing.
A vision of an industrial construction that, as discussed by and from Vers une architecture: Reflections at Pavillon Le Corbusier, Zürich, in the intervening century has largely relied on a prefabrication so often belittled in context of the Platte to achieve it aims. And thus an appreciation of prefabrication as a future-orientated construction principle — yes, 3D printing should take up that role, but let's blend that out for time being, pretend the construction industry has no interest in it — an appreciation of prefabrication as an important component of industrial construction, that is an important reminder that the Platte not only has a long (hi)story, but is still highly relevant today.
Or Christian Thoelke's Gerüst from 2019 and Kaufhalle from 2020, works in which the (Kletter)Gerüst, Climbing Frame, and Kaufhalle, Supermarket, of the titles having been abandoned by a society that has moved on find themselves in the process of being reclaimed by nature, being assimilated into a natural environment that in the case of the Kaufhalle that absent society sought to dominate, and in context of the (Kletter)Gerüst sought to replace through imitation. Depictions that aside from graphically reinforcing that nature will always reclaim that which humans leave behind, also poses more fundamental questions of what remains when that which bequeathed it life, that which demanded its existence, is no longer there. Not just in terms of physical structures, nor only in terms of civic structures, but also in terms of the immaterial structures we all construct within ourselves, be they emotions, dreams, grievances, defences, whatever. Is the process of change predetermined? When does the change occur? How does that change progress? Are they reclaimed by an inherent personal nature they once sought to dominate and/or replace through imitation? And what of the memory of the time when they were necessary, the time of their construction and their use? What of the memory of the (Kletter)Gerüst? What of the memory of the Kaufhalle? What of the memory of the Platte? What of the memory of architecture? How, why, when does memory change? That question of the forming, maintenance and reliability of memory that was approached by and from Fairy Tale. Childhood in Lithuania during the late Soviet era at Kaunas Picture Gallery, or the question of conservation of the past as a component of the now and future as approached by and in Sandra Knecht - Home Is a Foreign Place at Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger, Basel. Questions that recur, never leave you in peace, within Wohnkomplex.
A nature in Thoelke's works also very much present in Peter Herrmann's 1979 painting Kühe von dem neuen Tor with its depiction of a trio of very confused looking cows in a pasture overshadowed by a ginormous Platte, that on the one hand reminds of the urban sprawl Platten facilitate and on the other of the Dorfplatte, Village Platte, a specific incarnation of the Platte that, certainly in an eastern German context but also in a wider eastern European context, reminds of the necessary, more or less, enforced relocation of workers to the countryside that occurred to ensure the security of food production. A question of how one ensures sufficient specialist workers and professionals in rural locations that has lost none of its contemporaneousness, arguably has become more urgent, in recent decades as the countryside has increasingly ceased to be a location of active life and has become a place of retreat from the city, a place from which to commute to your job in the city. Or an investment.
And thoughts on a transiency of permanence and a permanence of transience as unalienable, unescapable, elements of human society and the human being echoed in Markus Draper's 2015 project Grauzone in which seven DDR Platten where in the 1980s former members of the West German RAF hid out, with new identities and protected from the authorities in the West by the authorities in the East, are recreated in cast zinc. A project that on the one hand underscores, as also discussed in context of PURe Visions. Plastic Furniture Between East and West at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Dresden, that although the (hi)story of East Germany and West Germany is often told as one of two diametrically juxtaposed nations separated by an impenetrable wall and therefore two nations independent of one another, without contact with the other, the reality was very different. That Wall was porous, at times wide open. All you needed was the correct key. A different reality that the years 1945-89 needs must be discussed as today. Urgently.
And a project that on the other hand via the fact that Draper's zinc casts appear so robust and stable on first glance, but on closer inspection you begin to see the cracks, the fissures, the perforations, begin to see structures as porous as the Wall was, structures on their way out, but that cast as they are in zinc will remain intact for a long time to come, reminds of the slowness with which the past fades, reminds how that which was remains but never as it was. Which again brings one back to memory as a key component of how we view the world, how we appreciate the world, how we interact with the world. Thoughts which very naturally lead one to reflections on the contemporary romanticism of the DDR and the contemporary romanticism of the RAF, both of which will continue for a goodly while yet. As will the stereotypes and the prejudices the Neubrandenburg, Senftenberg, Schwedt and other cities whose Platten are depicted in Grauzone invariably stimulate.
And a transience of a different type also to be found in Uwe Pfeiffer's 1971 work Durchgang in Halle-Neustadt in which, graphically implied rather than actually, an ICE high speed train flashes through a Halle-Neustadt housing scheme that couldn’t know ICEs were a thing. An Uwe Pfeiffer couldn't know were a thing. Because ICEs weren't a thing in 1971. But that which ICEs enable was a thing in Halle-Neustadt in 1971. Thus an ICE that isn't, but was, that allows access to thoughts on how things remain the same while changing.
In addition, and thoroughly unsurprising given the very singular way we view the world and approach the world, we spent a long time with Sibylle Bergmann's late 1970s photo series P2 with its interiors of the eponymous Platten typology as inhabited in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Late 1970s interiors that are very heavily upholstered, are rammed to the gunnels with heavy, bulky, voluminous upholstered furniture to a degree that appears to be openly mocking not only the pre and post 1939-45 War Functionalist Modernists who sought, not least in the interest of hygiene, to abolish such upholstered furniture from such restricted spaces, but also the Functionalist Modernist informed architects of the 1950s DDR Bauakademie who had developed the P2 Type as component of a move towards the brave new world the 1920s and 30s assured us was coming.
Insights of the interiors of late 1970s Berlin-Lichtenberg as standing diametrically juxtaposed to the conceptual and physical spaces they were realised as that thus forces one to do that thing we all only very rarely do: to reflect on the reality in actual people's actual homes at any given moment in time, historic or contemporary, rather than imagining that they are/were the way the most prominent protagonists and proponents of particular positions present them as being. On the one hand, that which social media presents as 'normal' interiors to be aimed for and copied, rarely are, are invariably heavily curated, are a carefully composed staging, unlike Bergmann's photos, and on the other an echo of that discussion by and from Wohnen at Klassik Stiftung Weimar that (hi)story as an academic practice only records aspects of interiors and furniture, conventionally that of dominant groups as visible individuals, and while that which is recorded by historians is true, it's not the whole story. Not everyone in late 18th century Weimar lived like Goethe, Schiller, Anna Amalia, et al. See also the fact that in the 1930s the wooden chair was much more popular than the steel tube chair we're all told was ubiquitous in the 1930s. That your house doesn't look like anything you've ever seen on Isntagram and never will, because it's a space you need to live in. Or that 1970s Berlin-Lichtenberg apartments were rammed with heavily upholstered furniture not with that furniture you can buy today in Prenzlauer Berg as over-priced, disingenuous, 'Retro' DDR.
As Wohnkomplex repeatedly reinforces, art offers alternative perspectives on society, on the material world, on relationships between individuals, between individuals and objects, individuals and space, the material and the immaterial that make it an important conversation partner for academia.
Whereby in the interest of completion and fairness one must add that in one photo there is a DDR String shelving system plagiarism to be seen that indicates a slightly more Modernist focussed approach. An approach much more in line with intentions of the architects of the P2. Certainly a reminder of the state sponsored plagiarism of the DDR.
And photos by Bergmann that are one of only very few projects/works featured in Wohnkomplex that deal directly with the in of the title: interiors are there, are instructively and engagingly there, just less often than exteriors.
A ratio of exteriors:interiors that helps reinforce the primacy of the -komplex of the title and the importance of appreciating that for all one lives in a space, a private, personal space that offers refugee from external realities, your space in society, that space is always but a component of a wider material -komplex and a wider immaterial -komplex.
A pleasingly varied presentation that for all it leaves you more than enough physical and mental space between the works to bring your own reflections and arguments to the discourse, nevertheless demands a goodly amount of work from the visitor, which, as ever, is no criticism, far from it, we're all in favour of making museum visitors work for their entrance fee, far too many believe you can skip through an exhibition with your eyes alone; and if you do that work you'll find a presentation that despite/on account of its borderlessness offers differentiated, abstracted, speculative perspectives on the DDR that demand you approach the DDR afresh and anew; regardless of how positive or negative or romanticised your view was on entering Wohnkomplex. But, for all, offers differentiated, abstracted, speculative perspectives on Platten that demand you approach not only Platten afresh and anew but architecture and urban planning; that you approach the Platte, architecture and urban planning via the cultural, social, political, emotional, immaterial et al -komplex that exists beyond the physical entity.
That thing art enables you to do.
Discussions on the Platte as an object and the Platte as concept Wohnkomplex continues beyond the exhibition halls in a loggia within which you can read books, watch videos, expand your thinking, and from which you can also survey the Potsdam panorama as it sweeps and unfolds below Das Minsk. A panorama that after viewing Wohnkomplex you can, should, must, immerse yourself in.
Immerse yourself in the Potsdam of Stüler, Persius and Schinkel and in the Potsdam of the Platte, both those Platten constructed for accommodation that are very much the focus of Wohnkomplex, and also those constructed for other purposes that are and were essential components of the -komplex of the title.
Non-residential Platten in downtown Potsdam that includes two that are relevant not only in context of contemporary Potsdam but in context of numerous recurring themes in Wohnkomplex: one Platte which you can see from Das Minsk, is part of the panorama before you, the other being indicated in the panorama by the reason for its relevance.
The former, the visible, being the Hotel Mercure, the former Interhotel, a Platte realised in 1969 by a collective under the leadership of Sepp Weber that in the early 2000s the entrepreneur, art collector and arts patron, Hasso Plattner, sought to demolish in order to build a gallery for his art collection. And, one can summarise, because it annoyed him. As it annoyed a great many in Potsdam, specifically those who, as noted, opined, commented on, in context of Re:Generation. Climate change in a natural World Heritage Site – and what we can do about it at Park Sanssouci, Potsdam, want to return downtown Potsdam to how it was the 18th and 19th centuries "when the carriages of the Hohenzollern rolled though the streets" and Stüler, Persius, Schinkel, et al were busy building: whereas elsewhere in Eastern Europe the questionable, dubious, Retrotopia dreams of a return to when all was right with the world in the days of the Warsaw Pact, in Potsdam that Retroptopia is to be found in the distant decades of the dominance of the Hohenzollern.1
Or a put another way, a Hotel Mercure that has little to do with the Potsdam one definitely sees from the terrace of Das Minsk, and therefore, so the argument, has no place in the Potsdam panorama.
And, the argument continues, definitely has no place next to the reconstructed 18th century Stadtschloss the today houses the Brandenburg Landtag, and across from which it stands: view that constellation Stadtschloss/Hotel Mercure from Lange Brücke and ask yourself which of the two material structures is historic? Which of the two material structures are components of Potsdam's (hi)story? Which of the two immaterial structures are components of Potsdam's (hi)story? Which of the two is a component of the memory of Potsdam?
Thus a Hotel Mercure that is an instructive component of, and conduit for, not only reflections on that aforementioned shift in architecture away from art towards utility, and the ongoing relevance of the debate that shift fired, but also for reflections on urban planning, on how urban spaces develop over time, how the -komplex in which we live evolves, grows, changes with and responds to time. Of the transiency of permanence and permanence of transience of urban spaces. Of the role of memory in that process, of the role memory should have. Of who decides by what processes the development of the collective urban space occurs. Who are cities built for?
A planned demolition of the Hotel Mercure that its continued existence in the Potsdam panorama verifies never happened. For all that it annoyed, and continues to annoy, a great many, thoughts of its demolition annoyed even more. Instead Hasso Plattner re-built the former Palast Barberini on Alten Markt as a museum and also renovated the long since closed 1970s Minsk cafe, essentially a Belarusian themed restaurant, hence the name, as a museum, Das Minsk. A museum based in a renovated Platte whose immediate vicinity to an unbuilt museum of the site of an undemolished Platte allows for a dialogue on the arguments made by, the evidence presented by, the likes of Anne Lacaton, Jean-Philippe Vassal and Frédéric Druot that renovating 1960s and 70s Platten is much preferable to demolition, preferable to the Remove. Rebuild. Repeat of conventional urban planning, as discussed by and from Demolition Question at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, DAZ, Berlin.
Socially, economically, culturally and ecologically preferable.
That, as Wohnkomplex allows one to reflect upon, for all a Platte is a construction method and a physical structure, that which arises is always lot more, takes on a reality, an immaterial reality, that while independent of the material reality also requires that material reality. A situation that applies to any building regardless of construction method.
Thoughts that reinforce that relationships with any building, within any built environment, are very Komplex. And need must be approached as such.
The latter, the invisible, being the soon to vanish, to be vanquished, potentially soon to vanish, be vanquished, Rechenzentrum that stands right next to the rebuilt Garnisonkirche whose steeple you can see from Das Minsk. A Garnisonkirche originally built in the 1730s, damaged in the War of the 1940s, demolished in the 1960s and rebuilt in the 2020s. A demolition of the Garnisonkirche in the 1960s that enabled the building of a data processing centre for the city authorities, the Rechenzentrum, another Platte by Sepp Weber and his team; and a rebuilding of the Garnisonkirche in the 2020s that, apparently, necessitates the demolition of the Rechenzentrum. Whereby we're not sure what Sepp did to annoy the Potsdam authorities, but they do seem very keen to bulldoze his work...
But does it need to be demolished? Should it be? A question that has caused many an (ongoing) (at times very heated) argument around many a breakfast and dinning table.
A Rechenzentrum adorned by a mosaic by Fritz Eisel, an example of 20th century DDR Kunst am Bau, DDR art that if one was keen on pigeonholes one could describe as... but we'll not.. you can if you want...
A mosaic that, yes, could be displayed in a museum, anything can be displayed out of context in a museum, should be displayed where it is. And Rechenzentrum that is currently home to artists and creatives, those individuals who have the potential, as Wohnkomplex ably demonstrates, to enable both a better approach to the urban spaces we create for our communities, and relationships within those spaces and within the society those communities foster, than we can achieve by ourselves, and thus also enable the differentiated perspectives on the complex -komplex in which we all live and in which society unfolds that we need as a regular check on where we are, the direction we're travelling, and the validity of the path we've sketched from the past. That thing the echo chamber of social media simply can not give us. That thing Wohnkomplex allows in context of Platten.
Creativity needs space where it is protected from the selfish demands and insistences of commerce, where it can be itself, develop, unfold, crash and burn and rise again from the ashes. A lot of that space that was there in Potsdam has gone, a lot of that which is being built in Potsdam is housing, business premises, or Retrotopia. What space is there for practising art and creativity in Potsdam? Where is the space for artists to crash and burn in Potsdam? Where is the space for an artistic approaching of and engaging with contemporary Potsdam? Does Potsdam not need that? Does Potsdam need museums or ateliers?
Questions specific to Potsdam that one can pose in and of almost any other city, that are globally becoming more urgent as the spaces between the city where artists and creatives live are being commandeered by others. And questions that are also very much part of the health of the -komplex in which any city exists and that Wohnkomplex allows one to explore and reflect upon. What use a house in an unhealthy -komplex? See also the discussions by and from Suburbia. Living the American Dream at the Architekturzentrum Wien.
Why should the 20th century Rechenzentrum yield to an 18th century building?
Why should the 20th century Hotel Mercure yield to an 18th century building?2
¿Because they're Platten?
What was a Platte? What is a Platte? Why was a Platte? Why is a Platte? Who was a Platte? Who is a Platte? What has the Platte become? What could the Platte become?
Questions Wohnkomplex very pleasingly confronts you with, admonishes you engage with, challenges you to engage with.
Thus considerations on two Platten that pleasing bring Potsdam into Wohnkomplex's exploration and in doing so not only helps liberate Potsdam from the historic, geographic and temporal boundaries, limitations, in which it is normally viewed and assessed, but also neatly allows one to transpose many of the themes in Wohnkomplex into wider contexts of architecture, urban spaces, society, accommodation, to transfer many of the themes in Wohnkomplex out of Das Minsk into the 21st century and its urban and social challenges.
And also to transfer many of the themes in Wohnkomplex out of Das Minsk into the panorama that sweeps and unfolds below Das Minsk.
A Panorama in which before viewing Wohnkomplex you invariably didn't see the Platten that once one learns to see, once you accept the challenge to see them advanced by Wohnkomplex, add whole new dimensions to that panorama. And to your appreciations of not only Potsdam but of global urban spaces past, present and future.
Wohnkomplex: Art and Life in Plattenbau is scheduled to run at Das Minsk, Max-Planck-Straße 17, 14473 Potsdam until Sunday February 8th.
Full details can be found at https://dasminsk.de
1Yes, there also a great many in Potsdam whose Retrotopia is the DDR, we're not denying that, but in the interests of the discussion at hand are quietly skipping past them. But they exist. And you need to be aware of them.
2Yes, again, one could ask Why should the Stadtschloss be forced to yield space to a 20th century building?, Why should the Garnisonkirche be forced to yield space to a 20th century building? and please do ask those questions, but in the interests of readability we're ignoring them.
