Architecture, Democracy and Emotions in Postwar Germany

The project focuses on three building projects in the Federal Republic of Germany and two in the GDR constructed between the immediate post-war period and the 1970s. The Bundeshaus in Bonn, the renovation of the former Aviation Ministry into the House of Ministries in East Berlin, the State Council Building and the Foreign Ministry in East Berlin, the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, and finally the so-called Kreuzbauten in Bonn demonstrate how ideas about the intersection of democracy and space were developed, put into place, and infused with emotions. The project investigates the way German government officials, architects and the public conceptualized, built and experienced the relationship between buildings and democracy following totalitarian rule.