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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
here since 1989 has since created ‘green corridors’ where greenery has now
established itself. These corridors through central Berlin are now slowly
being developed and will soon be eradicated as a material reminder of the
Wall. When the wall came down the area between Brandenburger Tor and
Potzdamer Platz was largely open space due to the bombings during World
War II and the building of the Wall. Huyssen described this area of Berlin
as a “prairie of history […] a void filled with history and memory, all of
which will be erased” (Huyssen 1997:75). Today this area has been developed
but the line of the Berlin Wall is still visible in the cobbled line
along the streets and through collective memory. Although redeveloped
after 1989 the wall is still apparent at the Brandenburg Gate. The Berlin
Wall brutally cut off this historical monument from West Berlin and the
wall in front of the gate became one of the most common images in the
West of the division. The city continues to develop but the absence of the
wall is still apparent, still making this an important place for the memory of
the wall and to people who come to remember it (Figure 14).
The wall that kept the two parts of Berlin may have gone but in some
ways it is more present than ever. The many different sites of border
remains, memorials, information points, museums and voids left behind are
all reminders of a divided Berlin, a piece of history kept alive through the
materiality it has left behind.
Figure 14: Space on Alte
Jacobstraße left open after the
border infrastructure was removed
and still undeveloped in 2009.
Photo: Anna McWilliams.
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