On June 29th, 2021, I headed to Lincoln Center on my way to watch Christian Petzold’s new film Undine. I chose this as my cultural project topic because Petzold is a German filmmaker who has touched my heart for his previous film and adaption of the book by the same name by Anna Seghers’ called Transit. Transit, a story about a World War II love affair happening in Marseille between a concentration camp victim and a woman waiting for her husband to return (“Transit by Anna Seghers”). In this new film, Petzold adapts another previously told story, an ancient folklore from the watery depths of history. In Undine Petzold returns to his native country of Germany and focuses on the of water nymph (Wikipedia contributors, “Undine”).
Told throughout the centuries and inspirational writers like both Hans Christian Anderson and Disney, Undine is a reverse story of the little mermaid. Undine is a water nymph who chooses to become human when she falls in love with a mortal man who later betrays her. Distraught she dies upon the shore, is reborn, but cursed to live life on land until a pure love can return her to the water (“Undine | Mythology”). Petzold’s drama closely follows this same narrative but interwoven between myth is a theme of Berlin’s architectural past and present that operates best as social realism. The film is an interesting mix of fantasy, mythology and pragmatic realism told through the stones of the city.
Undine begins about midway through the story of the myth. We meet Undine on land, already in partnership with a mortal. We enter only moments before his betrayal. Undine (Paula Beer) has found work as a freelance Dorset for the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing. The Adresse ist 3, Kölnischer Straße, Berlin-Mitte. The website offers virtual tours of the miniature maps of Berlin. A 1:1000 of the City Model, a 1:500 scale of Berlin Model, a 1:500 scale GDR planning model and the 1:2000 Tactile Model. What I learned from this movie are fascinating and pose real world questions that tie into the mythological. I discovered an even deeper, richer sense of Berlin’s struggle between East and West, Capitalism and Socialism, past and present and what it means to recreate history.
The first model we learn about in Petzold’s Undine is a model constructed in 1991. After reunification in 1990, construction efforts were focused on the former East Berlin’s inner city, known as the “historic center”. To better assess building projects on urban planning, this blueprint was created. The pre-1990 building is presented in white. The tan buildings are those
that have been built since and are those with incomplete facades which are planned but not yet built. When Moscow saw the plans to rebuild East Berlin they were rejected by the political leaders there because the workers’ apartments designed by Scharoun’s collective were too modest, the family homes with small gardens were too bourgeois and the street layout was considered too “provincial”. Moscow’s leaders demanded a solution using Moscow as the model that would express the ideas for social change and progress for Germany’s socialist capital. Moscow desired a city center with large axes and monumental buildings and not “faceless, boxy, American-style architecture with no sense of history” (Petzold). They described an architecture keeping in with their national traditions. But what comes to one’s mind when hearing this is: has not the term “national” been forever discredited by National Socialism years after the war? Clearly not.
The second model is the GDR planning model. The revolutionary collapse of the DDR had its 30thanniversary on November 9th, 2019. This shows the city council’s building stock in East
Berlin’s center pre-1989. It is the idealized planning model of the socialist city shortly before it’s collapse. The colored plastic gives this model a distinct East German charm (Wikipedia contributors, “German Reunification”).
The third model extends the focus to areas of the western inner city. The presentation of the courtyards provides an insight into the Wilhelmine tenement housing in Berlin in the “Gründerzeit” era of the 1990s. The Gründerzeit era was the economic phase of Austria and Germany in the 19th century before the stock market crash of 1893. In class we learned about the industrialization in this era and the changes in pollical reformations and economic changes. This was due to the influx of money coming in from the Franco- Prussian war reparations.
The subsequent unification of Germany and its rising capital gave this time frame the name of the “founding years”. Strategic emphasis was placed on cultural development and esthetic changes like restructuring architecture (Wikipedia contributors, “Gründerzeit”). The predominant style was called “Historicism” which recreates past styles such as Greek and Roman classicism and Romantic era in building facades. Historicism became associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie after the industrial revolution (Wikipedia contributors, “Historicism (Art)”).
The model which covers the largest area is the tactile model, which is used for blind or visually impaired visitors.
Although this model is the largest of the four, none of these models encompass the entirety of Berlin. For example, the tactile model does not cover the area inside of the S-Bahn “rings” which radiate out from Berlin’s central city center. Due to its distinctive and easily recognizable shape on the map, this area is called the “dog’s head”.
It covers an area of 90 square kilometers or roughly 55 miles, which makes up about 1/10 of Berlin’s total area. The modern boundaries of Berlin are traced back to the Greater Berlin Act of 1920 which consolidated Berlin and its outlying towns and suburbs into a single administrative entity (Wikipedia contributors, “Greater Berlin Act”).
Although the exact date that Berlin was founded remains unknown, Berlin’s origins are where the Muhlendamm Bridge crosses over the river Spree.
The first structures most likely emerged at the turn of the 13th century when traders-built settlements on the banks of the river. The name Berlin is Slavic in origin and means “marsh” or more precisely a “dry place in the marsh” (Wikipedia contributors, “Berlin”). The palace was initially located at the western boundary of the city. As the city expanded westwards, it shifted towards the city center, becoming the focal point of the city, the hub for the surrounding buildings, and the starting point for the avenue named “Unter den Linden” which was previously known as the Prussian “Via Triumphalis”. The layout of the palace district is distinct with the Cathedral, Zeughaus, Lustgarten and Altes Museum but only becomes evident with the palace as it’s reference point. In this aspect, the revival of the city’s lost center was the key argument for the reconstruction of the city palace.
In World War II most of the palace was destroyed, although in the early post-war years some rooms were still used for exhibitions etc. If the DDR socialist party had been interested, it certainly could have been rebuilt, as proven by the reconstruction of Charlottenburg Palace in the West (Wikipedia contributors, “Schloss Charlottenburg”). But East Berlin’s urban development planners wanted to use the palace site as a parade ground where, according to Walter Ulbricht, the people could express their will to fight and rebuild their nation. In autumn of 1950, despite numerous protests, the ruins of the palace were demolished because, as it was rumored, [they] could not demolish both the cathedral and the palace. The empty space was partially filled by the Palace of the Republic in the 1970s, but an almost surreal wasteland remained in the center of the city (Wikipedia contributors, “Palace of the Republic, Berlin”).
After reunification, a discussion soon developed about how to make use of this space in the city center. In 2002 the Bundestag voted to rebuild the palace with a replica of the old façade. In 1992 the associate for the reconstruction of the palace created a simulation of the palace façade to show Berlin residents what they had lost in the heart of the city and the public voted in support of a historical reconstruction of the palace which would mainly serve as a museum space under the name Humboldt Forum (Wikipedia contributors, “Berlin Palace”).
Modern architectural theory teaches that the design of a building can be derived from the realization of its intended use. One can make a case for something like “Form follows function” in this sense because in the center of Berlin now stands a museum built in the 21st century of an 18th century palace. What one can understand from this is the paradox of time and nature that this makes no real difference. Petzold asks us to ponder if this is the same thing as claiming that progress is impossible. Be that as it may, Petzold himself time and time again is re-recording history through his narratives in filmmaking by taking old stories and revamping them for the modern age. If being alive in this century is a crime to use functionality from the past, then what is Petzold doing himself? In Transit Petzold retells the story of two individules living in a World War II era in France but the set is designed for the modern century. In Undine, Petzold takes the classic folklore narrative and weaves it into Berlin’s past and present. What would we be if not for the giants of the past giving us a metaphorical shoulder to stand on? While history remains unchanged our parts in it are not and capable of manifesting new realities on the stones of our elders.
Works Cited
Undine [Undine]. Directed by Christopher Petzold, Schramm Film, Les Films du Losange, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), 2021.
Wikipedia contributors. “Berlin.” Wikipedia, 8 July 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin.
---. “Greater Berlin Act.” Wikipedia, 15 May 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Berlin_Act.
---. “Undine.” Wikipedia, 9 July 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undine.
“Undine | Mythology.” Encyclopedia Britannica,
www.britannica.com/topic/undine-mythology. Accessed 10 July 2021.
“City Models of Berlin / State of Berlin.” Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing, 2021, www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/stadtmodelle/index_en.shtml.
---. “Gründerzeit.” Wikipedia, 15 Apr. 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnderzeit.
---. “Historicism (Art).” Wikipedia, 8 Apr. 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicism_(art).
---. “German Reunification.” Wikipedia, 10 July 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification.
“Transit by Anna Seghers.” Good Reads, 2021, www.goodreads.com/book/show/1793889.Transit.
---. “Berlin Palace.” Wikipedia, 10 July 2021,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Palace.
---. “Schloss Charlottenburg.” Wikipedia, 14 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Charlottenburg.
---. “Palace of the Republic, Berlin.” Wikipedia, 4 July 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin.
PHOTOS
“Dog-Head-Berlin-Public-Rail-Traffic-Concept.” Research Gate, 2021, www.researchgate.net/figure/Dog-head-Berlin-public-rail-traffic-concept-1882_fig8_277311230.
Croucher, Penny. “Historic Crossing Point | Berlin Unwrapped.” Berlin Unwrapped, 2021, www.berlinunwrapped.com/historic-crossing-point.
“War Destruction and Demolition.” Berlin Palace, 26 July 2017, berliner-schloss.de/en/palace-history/war-destruction-and-demolition.
Jabri, Parvez and Reuters. “Berlin City Palace.” Brecorder, 18 Feb. 2019, www.brecorder.com/news/475178.
“City Models of Berlin / State of Berlin.” Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing, 2021, www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/stadtmodelle/index_en.shtml.
Burchard, Wolf. “What’s the Point of Rebuilding Germany’s Palaces?” Apollo Magazine, 10 Mar. 2016, www.apollo-magazine.com/whats-the-point-of-rebuilding-germanys-palaces.
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