Members' Research Report Archive

SoHo, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg: Activism and Urban Renewal in the Late Cold War

Emily Pugh, Research Associate, 2013–2014

Much of my research explores the relationships between those who finance, design, and build architecture and those who inhabit, visit, work in, or otherwise use the finished structures. This aspect of the built environment is a focus of my book, Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin, which was published this year by the University of Pittsburgh Press. It is an avenue of inquiry I will continue to pursue in my new research project on activism and urban renewal in the late Cold War. This study will consider the intersections between cultural production, social and political change, and urban development in the neighborhoods of SoHo in New York, Kreuzberg in West Berlin, and Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin from the 1970s through the 1980s. Essays related to this project will appear in upcoming issues of the journals Space and Culture and Centropa.