The Ruin: History as a Labyrinth

Abstract

As one of the oldest European cities, Berlin has many historically significant buildings. Due to heavy bombardment during World War II, many of those historical architectural remains are present in ruined condition today. In many cases, instead of being demolished for new construction, they are excavated, preserved and turned into visible landmarks in the city. Ruins have a strong narrative quality causing the observer to experience a passage of time by depicting the present state of a theatrical past. Developing and reusing those valuable architectural spaces in a contemporary context has to reconcile its design with the history of the site. The renovation and conservation of the architectural ruins raises the question: how does one respond to a site’ s history and its future? The new narrative is not simply to rely on a process of restoring the original but to demonstrate the development and transformation of culture and history into a modern context. The history of ruins is composed of a multitude of singular narratives that exist illegibly as fragments of history. This thesis proposes an architectural intervention that engages with a ruined site by assembling those fragments in order to become a catalyst in developing new languages for the site. The proposal seeks to use architectural space as a metaphor to connect the history and future of the site.