Article:

Ikonische Stadtstrategien. Das Fassadenplakat und die Musterfassade als Instrumente machtpolitischer Repräsentation

Even before the realization of buildings, facade posters and model facades ful-fill highly aesthetic (re-)presentations to influence the public discourse, to mar-ginalize alternatives, charge opinions with specific meaning and prepare the urban public for the future materialization. These so-called façades do not only represent what has been done and what is desired by influential actors, they also seem to have the potential to constitute values, spaces of belonging and form constellations of power in public, thus closing or aligning urban dis-courses and strategically influencing political decisions. Facade posters and model facades are of great social relevance and in this sense are being under-stood as iconic instruments and power political representations. Since the 1990s they are used to promote the (re-)construction of buildings in Berlin. Dif-ferent material formations and strategies can be differentiated. Prominent ex-amples are the simulations of the Berliner Schloss between 1993-1994 and the Berliner Bauakademie, which has been set up since 2001. They should there-fore be taken seriously and critically regarded as a focal point of social negoti-ation within the urban space.