Visions for Reconstruction in a Divided City
In 2022 and 2024, the photo artist Bettina Cohnen photographed people in their apartments on Karl-Marx-Allee and in the Hansaviertel. This is contrasted by photographs of the Berlin administration from 1947 to 1954, which show the condition of the later residential areas in the early 1950s.
Image gallery
KEY VISUAL Duett der Moderne
Good and affordable housing for everyone was a central concern of modernist architecture. This applied to the planning of Stalinallee in Berlin (East) around 1950, the first "Socialist Street" and later Karl-Marx-Allee, as well as to the new Hansaviertel in Berlin (West), which was presented in 1957 as part of the Interbau.
Bettina Cohnen photographed in the famous residential areas of Berlin's post-war modernism. In eight series of images with over 80 shots, she shows the apartments in all their diversity, complexity and intimacy: a photographic commentary on everyday life in an environment that is much discussed today. At the same time, the photographer traces the ideas of the respective architects.
The streets in whose place the modern building projects were built from the mid-1950s onwards were largely destroyed in the Second World War. The removal of rubble was accompanied by extensive documentation by the Berlin magistrate, Senate and district offices, accompanied by photographers. These images are now kept in various Berlin collections, including the Berlin State Archives and the Mitte Museum.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the building culture platform THE LINK. It takes place as part of EMOP Berlin, Germany's largest biennial photo festival. The festival with the motto "what stands between us" took place in its eleventh edition from March 1 to 31, 2025.
