Memory and Architecture

2: Disguised Visibilities: Dresden/“Dresden”

chapter two Disguised Visibilities Dresden/“Dresden” MARK JARZOMBEK The New Dresden When the Boston Globe recently proclaimed in a headline, “Dresden Builds a Future: German City Reconstructs Its Demolished Past,” the words, inadvertently, raised some intriguing questions.1 What does it mean “to build a future?” What is the nature of that “demolished past?” Even the first word, Dresden, is something of a conundrum. The city actually consists of two cities, one on each side of the Elbe. On the north side one finds Dresden-Neustadt, which was laid out in 1732 over the ruins of the old medieval township that had burned in a massive conflagration in 1685. A good portion of that “New City” is now, ironically, the oldest part, since sections of it were spared in the bombing raids of 1945. By contrast, the part of Dresden south of the Elbe that had been destroyed in the war had been rebuilt by the Socialists in a Marxist modernist manner. As the article proclaims, Dresden is presently again in the process of being worked over. This newest of the “new” Dresdens is divided into two zones. The area closer to the train station is becoming a postmodern-styled commercial center, while the area along the Elbe, containing the castle, ministry buildings, and museums, as well as that famed eighteenth-century baroque| 49 50 | Mark Jarzombek masterpiece, the Frauenkirche, is in the process of becoming Dresden’s reconstituted historical quarter. The restorers’ hope, in particular, is to recapture the silhouette of Dresden’s once-famous skyline as seen from Dresden-Neustadt. Before one can attempt to critique these developments, the Nazi-era Dresden must also be taken into consideration. Part of the problem, however , is that the Nazis did not add any major buildings to the city’s center but adapted old structures to their purposes. The Taschenbergpalais, located just behind the castle, was used, for example, as the Nazi army command headquarters. But when the multimillion-dollar restoration of the building was recently completed, the book that celebrated that event mentioned its wartime use only vaguely as something that the “old timers remember.”2 Not only does one wonder what those memories might consist of, but one may also ask, why is it mentioned as a “memory” and not as a fact? As it turns out, the Nazis contributed more than just “memories” to the urban landscape of Dresden. Along the foundations of the Elbe Bridge that links Neustadt to Dresden, at the very point from which Dresden’s famous fig. 2.1. Plan of Dresden. Drawn by Mark Jarzombek. Disguised Visibilities | 51 silhouette can best be seen, Hans Nadler designed a loggia in 1935 that houses a set of enameled panels depicting the building of Dresden-Neustadt. The theme of the panels, showing a confident ruler looking down at broad-shouldered workers, is certainly innocuous, but one should not forget that the Nazis perceived Dresden as a perfect Germanic city, with the only disturbing element the nineteenth-century synagogue that had been designed by Gottfried Semper and located in a prominent spot close to the Elbe. And so, in 1939, after the building had already been firebombed on Kristallnacht, it was blasted into oblivion. Though a new synagogue has recently been built on the same site as the old, it is a low, modern building, not visible in the newly reconstructed skyline. In that sense, the contemporary Dresden skyline still carries the imprint of the Nazi-era vision of the city.3 The history of Dresden is thus not only a history of multiple “Dresdens,” but also a history of the problematic interweaving of overlapping and fig. 2.2. Nighttime illumination of Dresden’s new skyline, from Dresdener Neueste Nachrichten 9, no. 16/80 (Jan. 20, 1999): 1. competing narratives about its past and future. This comes very well into focus in the movie that is shown to today’s tourists at the Transportation Museum located in the very heart of Dresden’s newly created heritage district. The film, entitled Das alte Dresden, in den 30-er Jahren (The Old Dresden, in the 1930s), shows tourists being driven through the city on buses to view the sites. With similar buses still being used for the same purpose, and parked not too far away, the film tries to evoke a sense of continuity with the 1930s. That some of the movie’s clips derive from Nazi...