A groundbreaking photography exhibition titled "Berlin One – The Nineties" is currently on display at Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin-Schöneberg, showcasing the dramatic transformation of Berlin following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The exhibition features works by three prominent photographers – André Kirchner, Nelly Rau-Häring, and Peter Thieme – who documented the city's radical changes from different perspectives during the pivotal 1990s decade.
The exhibition, which runs Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with free admission until September 28, includes numerous photographs depicting Berlin's evolution after reunification, with particular focus on the massive construction sites at Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz. These images serve as crucial visual documentation of one of history's most significant urban transformations, demonstrating the indispensable role of street and urban photography in tracking historical developments.
The three photographers brought unique backgrounds and perspectives to their documentation of Berlin's reunification process. André Kirchner arrived in West Berlin from Munich in 1981 to study but abandoned his formal education after teaching himself photography. He has since become recognized as one of Berlin's most important chroniclers. Peter Thieme, originally from East Germany, studied at the prestigious Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. Swiss photographer Nelly Rau-Häring had lived in West Berlin as a freelance photographer for several decades after the construction of the Berlin Wall, capturing people on the streets of both West and East Berlin for various newspapers and city magazines before eventually returning to Switzerland.
While Kirchner and Thieme focused their large-format cameras and tripods on architectural changes, Rau-Häring was more interested in documenting people in public spaces. The historical turning point of German reunification created a gold rush mentality among investors and speculators. Not only were East German state assets sold off cheaply through the Treuhand privatization agency in what many described as a colonial manner, but prime real estate locations like Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz were also sold by the Berlin Senate to major corporations at bargain prices to rapidly develop the division-era wastelands and restore Berlin's historic center.
However, critics raised concerns that genuine urban character cannot be designed at a drawing board but must develop organically over time. One of Rau-Häring's most striking images captures children playing on a dirt mound against the backdrop of Potsdamer Platz's emerging skyscrapers, symbolizing a memorable ambivalence between construction, demolition, and ghost town atmosphere. The Süddeutsche Zeitung described the quarter in 2023 as a neighborhood where nobody really wants to be, and indeed, the entire area has developed a peculiar character since the German Cinematheque, the Film House, and the Arsenal moved away, the Berlinale film festival no longer considers it a central location, and the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden shopping center languishes as a supposed food court destination.
Despite tourist foot traffic, there is little sense of vibrant urban life in the area. Major corporations have also abandoned their investments: Daimler-Benz sold its headquarters and 500,000 square meters of land in 2007 – property the company had acquired at the bargain price of just over 2,000 Deutsche Marks per square meter – and Sony left the plaza three years later, selling its main building as well.
The exhibition's title references Walter Benjamin's question from his "Little History of Photography": "But isn't every spot in our cities a crime scene?" Indeed, these locations become crime scenes of urban planners, politicians, investors, and architects who contribute to the constant – not always positive – changes affecting cities. Kirchner and Thieme's photographs highlight the rapid pace of transformation during the 1990s. Thieme shows an East German residential building at the corner of Kronenstraße and Friedrichstraße that no longer exists, while urban scenes on Georgenstraße and Charlottenstraße have also changed dramatically.
The images by both urban photographers represent architectural states that have since been erased and built over. Rau-Häring's wonderful street photography, including documentation of the withdrawal of American and Soviet soldiers, evokes an era that was briefly understood as the end of the Cold War – mistakenly so, as became clear with the illegal war in Yugoslavia and successive NATO eastward expansion, breaking promises made during the Two-Plus-Four Treaty negotiations.
Visitors can conduct detective research from multiple angles through all three photographers' work. In Kirchner's 2000 photograph of the architecturally renewed corner of Besselstraße and Charlottenstraße, an advertisement for affordable Arcor telephone rates is visible, featuring a scantily clad female model talking on the phone under the slogan "Available Cheap." Such blatant sexism would hardly be possible in advertising today, making these photographs valuable documents of not just architectural but also cultural transformation.
