Berlin, Alexanderplatz
Subtitle: transforming place in a unifed Germany
By: Gisa Weszkalnys.
Series: Space and place
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9781845457235
Subjects: Public spaces -- Political aspects -- Germany -- Berlin; Alexanderplatz (Berlin, Germany); Berlin (Germany) -- Buildings, structures, etc
Description: A benchmark study in the changing field of urban anthropology, Berlin, Alexanderplatz is an ethnographic examination of the rapid transformation of the unified Berlin. Through a captivating account of the controversy around this symbolic public square in East Berlin, the book raises acute questions about expertise, citizenship, government and belonging. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city administration bureaus, developers' offices, citizen groups and in Alexanderplatz itself, the author advances a richly innovative analysis of the multiplicity of place. She reveals how Alexanderplatz is assembled through the encounters between planners, citizen activists, social workers, artists and ordinary Berliners, in processes of popular participation and personal narratives, in plans, timetables, documents and files, and in the distribution of pipes, tram tracks and street lights. Alexanderplatz emerges as a socialist spatial exemplar, a ̀future' under construction, an object of grievance, and a vision of robust public space. This book is both a critical contribution to the anthropology of contemporary modernity and a radical intervention in current cross-disciplinary debates on the city. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.