Architecture and History in Germany

Around four and a half million visitors took advantage of the opportunities presented during the Open Monument Day. But anyone interested in historic monuments will be quite spoilt for choice: 7,500 historic buildings, gardens and archaeological sites in more than 2,600 cities and municipalities opened their doors to the public this year. Coordinated throughout Germany by the German Foundation for Monument Protection, the yearly Open Monument Day proves time and again to be a true crowd puller – and historic conservation a mass movment.

Diversity of Monuments

While this year’s motto was „Discovering the Past – Archaeology and Building Materials Research,“ in recent years the Open Monument Day’s focus was on historic canals, gardens, monuments as private living space, and sacred architecture. The monuments themselves are as diverse as the themes. And they are enjoying growing interest – not only on Open Monument Days; after all, historic city centers, decommissioned industrial buildings or carefully restored churches are an indispensable part of every-day life.

Each of the 16 German Bundesländer has passed its own legislation on historic conservation, to protect important historic sites from destruction, to maintain them properly and to equip them for the future. What began in 1902 in Hesse with the first modern law on historic conservation was carried forward in 1975 with the European Year of Monument Preservation. In this way, the 20th century was not only the era of modernity and thus a threat to our cultural heritage, it was also the era of a growing awareness that sensitivity in dealing with the architectural heritage of earlier times is indispensable.

And today? In most Bundesländer lists of monuments are available that provide information on which buildings, architectural ensembles or gardens enjoy landmark protection. Many of them are available in the Internet. But what can be done with a monument? Nordrhein-Westfalen’s law on landmark preservation puts the matter in dry legal terms: “Landmarks are objects whose preservation and utilisation are in the public interest. Public interest exists when the objects in question are of significance for human history, for cities and residential areas, or for the development of employment and production and for whose preservation and utilisation artistic, scientific, ethnological or urban development reasons are present.”

The living past

It is sometimes claimed that there are too many landmarks in Germany. But is about 5% of the country’s building substance really too much? Having said that, the concept of landmark preservation did undergo a significant expansion in the 20th century. Today, not only castles, palaces or churches are counted as landmarks, but factories and workers’ housing settlements have long since been added to them. In summer 2008, six modern residential areas in Berlin were even granted the coveted World Cultural Heritage status. But not only artistically valuable buildings count as monuments. Sites that arose during the two German dictatorships may count as landmarks on the basis of their historical significance. The art historian Norbert Huse once described them as uncomfortable landmarks.

Among them are the Nazi Party Rally Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände) in Nuremberg, where the history and criminality of National Socialism can be felt as well as studied. One uncomfortable landmark are the remains of the Berlin Wall, through which the ways in which the DDR’s inhuman repression functioned can be seen.

Monuments are witnesses to history – but they have now also become an important economic factor. Thus, every two years a landmarks trade fair is held in Leipzig, where master craftsmen’s firms, institutions and foundations involved in historic conservation present their work. After all, one cannot restore a landmark with materials from a home improvement store. It requires scholarly and scientific expertise and matching high-quality craftsmanship. A study by the German National Committee for Landmark Preservation showed therefore that tax subsidisation of landmarks pays off, because each euro of subsidy “saves 15 euros in follow-up investment.”

But in spite of its success with the public and its economic importance, landmark conservation is facing difficulties. In our modern throwaway society for example, getting the message across that landmark preservation is not simply a matter of (re)creating the most attractive landmarks possible. Its goal is much more the preservation of authentic witnesses to history, including the traces left by time and use. Where else than in historic buildings with their patina, acquired over the years and centuries, can history become so palpably alive? Monuments – and this is has been shown not only on the Open Monument Day – are places where our history becomes our present.