Luca Girardini ↑
Berlin heritage / meaning of urban symbols

The 20th Century has left Berlin with a complicated legacy: large Soviet-inspired urban plans cohabit with the west neighborhoods. The city had shown a mix of old-fashioned neighborhoods and urban voids. Within this heterogeneous urban scene, a need started to grow: the identification of that monuments which would serve as symbols of the identity of the city, able to embody the identity of a community.
The photographic project makes a report of the situation, concentrating on various trends. The monuments photographed are scattered between the East and the West, they are historical - or historicizing - buildings. All inspired by the past, the new monuments avoid to enhance the grandeur of the present, rather, they disguise themselves behind old façades. Many of them are reconstructed, some of them are standing on a new location, all aim at recovering a thread that in the 20th Century has been cut.