The Value of GDR Architecture. The Impact of the Treuhand Property Company's Activities on the Public Perception of the GDR's Built Heritage.

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Stefanie Brünenberg
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 510232296

The transfer of the "Volkseigentum" of the GDR into the market economy of reunified Germany by the Treuhandanstalt (THA) is still criticized today. However, previous research on the "Treuhand" has not taken the architectural stock into account. Yet the worthiness of this architectural heritage of the GDR is an important topic in architectural-historical debates. In the research project "The Value of GDR Architecture", the handling of the GDR's architectural heritage by the Treuhand-Liegenschaftsgesellschaft (TLG) as a subsidiary of the THA is to be investigated with reference to these two highly relevant and explosive research discourses. The changes in ownership structures that accompanied the sale and liquidation of public and company facilities such as large-scale restaurants, polyclinics, FDGB vacation homes, and department stores resulted in the conversion, demolition, and reconstruction of many of these former specific GDR buildings. At the same time, these changes in the built environment, forced by outside political actors, exerted a strong influence on the independent construction of a culture of remembrance in East Germany. By focusing on the TLG activities, this research project examines how the GDR's built heritage evolved through privatization from 1991 to 2000. For this purpose, the institutional history of the TLG will be reviewed (work package 1) and the TLG's handling of the buildings it administers will be researched by analysing a cartographic mapping (work package 2). Based on this mapping, the chang of ownership individual case studies is to be investigated in relation to their structural transformation (work package 3). Overall, conclusions are to be drawn about a supposedly changed public perception of the architecture of the GDR. According to the hypothesis of this research project, the circumstances of the restructured ownership of objects, some of which are significant in terms of building culture, as well as the resulting redesign of the built environment, are decisive factors in a poorly developed culture of remembrance of the GDR by the architecture that emerged between 1949 and 1990.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Christoph Bernhardt