Counter-designs

Prenzlauer Berg before, during and after the fall of the Wall

Plakat zur Ausstellung "Gegenentwürfe" – Plakat zur Ausstellung "Gegenentwürfe"

The transformation and reunification process can be illustrated in no other place in Germany as exemplarily as in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg. From the 1970s onwards, a multifaceted counterculture emerged here, in which oppositional and non-conformist thinking and behavior came together and counter-concepts to the prevailing real socialism were conceived, tested and lived.

In Prenzlauer Berg, well-known protagonists and important groups of the GDR opposition were active and developed their alternative ideas. Central locations of the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 were located here: the Gethsemane Church and the Bornholmer Straße border crossing.

Many of the controversial conflicts on topics such as co-determination, urban redevelopment, education, environmental protection, the economic system and social responsibility, which were already being discussed before the fall of the Wall, remained socially explosive afterwards and in some cases even came to a head under the changed circumstances.

The exhibition traces these themes from the turn of the epoch in 1989/90 to the present day and examines the continuities and ruptures in East Germany even after reunification using the specific example of seven locations in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

The exhibition was conceived and supervised by the Museum Pankow in cooperation with the Berliner Geschichtsverein Nord-Ost e.V. and the exhibition agency exhibeo and with the kind support of the Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, the Bezirkskulturfonds and the Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft.

 

Translated with DeepL

Runtime: from May 2009

Takes place here:

• Museum Pankow - Standort Prenzlauer Allee 227