Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin: Framing the Asynchronous City, 1957-2012 (Cities and Cultures)

As sites of continual change and transformation, cities are fundamentally forgetful places. Yet at the same time, urban areas are also homes to museums and archives that collect and exhibit the past-a key cultural, political, and economic activity. This book looks at that paradox through the example of Berlin to see how the city has responded to challenges to memory created by rapid changes in politics, economics, society, and the built environment, ultimately arguing that the recovery of the experience of time is central to the practices of an emergent memory culture in the contemporary city. Read more Continue reading Read less REVIEW
"The scope of Ward's arguments exceeds the specific context of Berlin and presents wider reflections on the relationship between the transformation of the city through cycles of destruction and rebuilding, and the ongoing need to address obsolescence and forgetting by creating a presence of the past. Thus, Urban Memory and Visual Culture in Berlin is an essential book for readers interested in the relationship between time, place, and the city, and the distinctive trajectories of urban memory in postwar Berlin.'- Sandra Jasper, University of Cambridge, German Studies Review Volume 41, No. 1, February 2018

Review [in German] on literaturkritik.de by Stephan Ehrig: http://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rezid=23566.

"This book is highly recommended to all those who look for a new comprehensive approach toward postwar urban memory cultures in Berlin. It combines the implementation of accepted theories with a visual culture approach on the built environment and photography/film"simultaneously moving beyond the East-West divide as enshrined in the traditional 1945/1961/1989 narrative." - Jan Musekamp, H-Urban, H-Net Reviews, February 2018. Read the full review here. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Simon Ward is Lecturer in the School of Modern Languages at Durham University, where he teaches German literature and visual culture. Read more Continue reading Read less