Berlin and Brandenburg have already collected several World Heritage titles with the Museum Island, the palaces and gardens between Pfaueninsel and Sanssouci, the beech forests in Grumsin, the former trade union school in Bernau registered as a “Bauhaus” building, the Museum Island and the now seven modern settlements. But let’s continue to speculate: What other possible World Heritage sites could be found in Berlin and Brandenburg?
The history of flying – starting with Otto Lilienthal, via Tempelhof, the blockade runner plane, Tegel and even the BER – results in a long list of built sensations that can only be experienced in Berlin. You don’t have to like the gigantic brown coal mines in Lusatia, but climate history would have been different without their exploitation. There are the monuments of wireless communication, following the World Heritage site of the long-wave transmitter Grimton in Varberg, Sweden, with the large radio station in Nauen, the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam, the radio and television towers in Berlin.
But these could also be radio and television towers as a showcase for a world heritage site – Stuttgart, Toronto, Tokyo, maybe even Moscow. Or as an anchor for a world heritage media architecture – sensationally represented in Berlin with the Mosse House, the grandiose Ullsteinhaus, the unique Broadcasting House, the RIAS building, the wonderful GDR studios on Nalepastrasse and several newspaper houses. It’s a shame that the building of the first German radio station on Alexanderplatz is no longer there.
How about an international world heritage application that is certainly highly ambiguous, but that is precisely why it is exciting: Christianization of Slavic Central Europe – the Brandenburg Cathedral, the cathedral in Gnezno / Gnesen, the Meissner Cathedral, perhaps the one in Riga? And then there is the architecture of sport – but only conceivable together with Munich, Helsinki and Tokyo. There are the wonderful sisters of the Berlin Olympic Stadium or the swimming pools of the 1920s.
© imago/Rolf Zöllner
A world heritage site for modern Jewish cemeteries like the one in Weissensee has already been considered. But this only makes sense together with those in Lodz, Thessaloniki or Budapest. Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, even Paris and Copenhagen were also invited to add their 1920s settlements to the World Heritage List.
But above all, the built legacy of the Cold War finally belongs on the list, with the former Stalinallee and its direct western competitor, the Hansaviertel, as well as the remains of the Wall. A beautiful and yet burdensome legacy – nowhere can the absurdity of the Cold War be experienced as well as in Berlin. In addition: The experts who were previously involved in registering the forest settlement of Onkel-Toms-Hütte need a new task. So come on, there’s a lot to do.