By Katelyn Abbott
Faculty mentor: Dr. Marcel Rotter
9:00-9:50am HCC 327
This talk will present a website that was created as final project for the course German 485 “The Wall – a Concrete History.” It discusses the East German communist party’s apartment construction project that had profound influence on the cityscapes of numerous towns. Announced at the 1971 party congress as a program that would “solve the apartment shortage as social problem,” it provided standardized apartments with modest comforts for thousands of families. The mass-produced and rent-controlled apartment buildings were sought-after, but were also the source of social problems. The suicide rate, for example, was highest in the biggest new developments. Furthermore, the targeted investment into new housing and lack of income from the subsidized rent let to the deterioration of historic apartment buildings adding further to the declining cityscapes of East Germany.
