Abstract

This article compares urban planning affecting historic buildings in Berlin and Stockholm. It examines some cases of preservation, demolition and reconstruction of historic buildings: the Hansa Quarter and the Palace of the Republic in Berlin, and Sergels torg with the House of Culture and Vällingby in Stockholm. Today, while Berlin has opted for reconstruction in several cases, Stockholm is preserving the status quo achieved by the large-scale demolitions during the 1950s and 1960s. Different historic approaches in urban planning are subsumed under the categories “architecture as wellbeing” and “the automotive city.” The policy cycle serves as a framework for a qualitative content analysis of debates on urban planning in both city councils. The article tests the hypothesis whether war destructions present in Berlin, but not in Stockholm, can explain the lack of plans for reconstruction of historic buildings in Stockholm. The examination of historic developments and current legislation on German and Swedish cultural policy and the case studies of the above-named buildings yield the result that the hypothesis is proven wrong. Instead, possible explanations for the lack of will to reconstruct in Stockholm are Swedish legal tradition since the 19th century, which provides little and weak protection to historic buildings, and the “people’s home” ideology shaping the Swedish self-perception as a modern nation. International legislation on monument protection such as the ICOMOS-ICCROM Guidance on Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Recovery and Reconstruction (2023), which becomes ever more encompassing, will perhaps introduce a future policy change.

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