Berlin’s Central Suburbia. On IBA Berlin 1987 and its Housing Complexes after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 2013, images of the demolition of Oswald Mathias Ungers' block on Berlin’s Lützowplatz appeared in numerous architectural journals and newspapers, causing considerable uproar. This demolition soon assumed broader meaning and posed a threat to many architectures that conceptually and contextually resembled it. What happened to Unger’s block could have happened to any other block built for IBA 1987, the International Building Exhibition held in West-Berlin in the 1980s. This exhibition represents a remarkable stage in Berlin’s reconstruction after WWII. IBA’s approach differed from that of the urban practices from the 1950s until the 1970s, which decentralised housing in large estates at the outskirts of the city. IBA envisioned instead new housing complexes for Berlin’s city centre. In the 1980s, however, Berlin’s centre was still divided by the Wall and consisted of two parts that were both peripheral in their respective half of the city. After Berlin’s reunification, these once peripheral neighbourhoods re-became central; however, their former peripheral characteristic is still manifest, owing to a lack of services and of qualitative public spaces. The shortcomings of these districts, despite their appealing central position, have led IBA buildings to become targets of speculative interest. Apart from the demolition of Unger’s Lützowplatz block, other IBA buildings such as John Hejduk’s Kreuzberg Tower have faced inadequate renovations, which would have cost the building much of its identity. Therefore, this paper reflects on the consequences of these occurrences as well as on the meaning and the future prospects of IBA’s housing complexes in contemporary Berlin.