Artworks by Marco Siciliano
Thanks to its many art galleries, museums, theatres, creative university courses, and street art, Berlin has been named the sixth-best city in the world for culture. [source: Printful]
But unlike other European capitals, Berlin is marked by the absence of many of its historic buildings—a result of war, the Berlin Wall, hasty urban planning, and relentless modernization. We witness a “phantom limb pain,” where the vanished architecture still lingers in the city’s collective memory just as the body remembers a limb that’s no longer there.
As Lisa Robertson says in her ‘Occasional work and seven walks from the Office for Soft Architecture’ (2006): “We walked through the soft arcade. We became architects. Memory’s architecture is neither palatial nor theatrical but soft. We amble towards the disappearance of godliness into cloth.”
In her book, Lisa poetically describes how Vancouver changed for the upcoming Olympic Games in 2010. The semitransparent fabric of construction sites is perceived as skin changing and adapting to a new form. A city-body metaphor that also applies to the city of Berlin.
Maybe this nostalgic feeling of lost cultural heritage sites is given by my ‘pretty old stone’ trained Italian eye. An attachment to the past that gives the perception of stability to the present but blind to the future most of the time. At the end of the day, Berlin is chosen by people who actually need a blank page to live in. A place where our skin can turn into the creature we don’t know yet and where beauty is not carved in white marble but appears with a red light from the dark.
Here is a selection of six vanished cultural heritage sites and their image that slowly melt into collective memory:
Großes Schauspielhaus (1919 – demolished in 1988)
by Hans Poelzig and Marlene Moeschke-Poelzig
In 1919, the Großes Schauspielhaus opened with an extraordinary expressionist design by Hans Poelzig and Marlene Moeschke-Poelzig. The foyer featured fountain-like columns leading to a vast domed amphitheater with stylized ‘stalactites’ and colored lighting. Advanced technology, including a revolving stage, complemented its stunning architecture. In 1934, the Nazis took over and renamed it Theater des Volkes. The iconic dome was deemed ‘degenerate’ and either concealed or removed, later suffering damage during World War II and finally demolished in 1988.
Ahornblatt (1973 – demolished in 2000)
by Ulrich Müther
This distinctive building, shaped like a giant maple leaf, was initially designed as a restaurant for the GDR’s Ministry of Construction. Over time, its use extended to accommodate staff from other government agencies. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the space took on a new life, hosting techno parties, but it remained vacant after 1994.
In 2000, despite strong opposition from activists within the cultural and art communities, the building was demolished and replaced by a hotel, a move widely criticized for erasing a unique architectural history.
Neues Museum (1855 – demolished in 1943)
by Friedrich August Stüler
In 1850, the Egyptian collection was moved to the Neues Museum, explicitly built on Museum Island. However, World War II had a devastating impact on the collection. The Neues Museum was heavily damaged, and many artifacts were destroyed. The surviving pieces were relocated to different parts of the city for safekeeping. After the war, some objects rejected from Russia were housed in the Bode Museum in Berlin.
Palast der Republik (1976 – covered in 2003)
by Heinz Graffunder
The Palace of the Republic was a building on the historic Lustgarten and Schloßplatz (until 1994: Marx-Engels-Platz ) on the Spree Island in the Berlin’s district Mitte. It was built between 1973 and 1976 according to plans by Heinz Graffunder. The building was only open for 14 years and had to be closed in 1990 due to the emission of carcinogenic asbestos fibers. From 1998 to 2003, the building was demolished down to its shell. In March 2013, the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace began in its place.
Mural (2008 – covered in 2014)
by Blu
Blu, the renowned Italian street artist known for his large-scale political murals, painted a second piece on an adjacent wall in Berlin. The figure wears two gold watches chained together like handcuffs, symbolizing how a businessman or corporate boss is imprisoned by his capitalist greed—a recurring theme in Blu’s critique of power structures and materialism.
In December 2014, Blu returned to Berlin and, in a bold and controversial move, painted over his iconic murals with black paint. Many viewed it as a protest against street art’s growing commercialization and gentrification. The event reignited a more significant debate about street art’s role in urban transformation and how it can be co-opted by the forces of gentrification, a theme Blu has long been vocal about in his work.
Griessmuehle (2012 – demolished in 2020)
Since opening eight years ago, Griessmuehle has become a key spot of Berlin’s nightlife, known for its weekend-long parties, including the hedonistic queer rave Cocktail D’Amore. However, the club was forced to relocate its location as the new owners planned to redevelop the site.
