Shrinking Cities in Reunified East Germany

The book explores the relationship between the shrinking process and architecture and urban design practices. Starting from a journey in former East Germany, six different scenes are explored in which plans, projects, and policies have dealt with shrinkage since the 1990s. The book is a sequence of scenes that reveals the main characteristics, dynamics, narratives, reasons and ambiguities of the shrinking cities’ transformations in the face of a long transition. The first scene concerns the demolition and transformation of social mass housing in Leinefelde-Worbis. The second scene deals with the temporary appropriation of abandoned buildings in Halle-Neustadt. The third scene, observed in Leipzig, shows the results of green space projects in urban voids. The scene of the fourth situation observes the extraordinary efforts to renaturise a mining territory in the Lausitz region. The fifth scene takes us to Hoyerswerda, where emigration and ageing process required a reduction and demolition in housing stock and social infrastructures. The border city of Görlitz, the sixth and last scene, deals with the repopulation policies that aim to attract retirees from the West.

Agim Kërçuku is an architect and urbanist, has a PhD in Urbanism at the Università IUAV di Venezia. Since December 2018, he has been a research fellow at the DAStU Excellence Department of the Politecnico di Milano. Research activity focuses on the dimension of fragility in the regions marked by dynamics of shrinking and marginalization and on the spatial implications of the phenomenon of population aging. He edited the publication of Territory in crisis. Architecture and Urbanism Facing Changes in Europe (Jovis, 2015, with other authors), Tensioni Urbane, Ricerche sulla città che cambia (LetteraVentidue, 2017, with other authors), Spatial Tensions in Urban Design (Springer, 2021, with other authors), and contributed to national and international publications.