Description: Examines the architecture and urban planning of reunified Berlin, and reveals how its iconic new government structures embody the unsettled contradictions that animate global contemporary architecture culture.
Brief description: Thomas O. Haakenson is Associate Professor in Critical Studies and Visual Studies at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Oakland, USA. He is coeditor of the book series Visual Cultures and German Contexts and has been published widely, including in New German Critique, Cabinet, Rutgers Art Review, German Studies Review, and the anthologies Legacies of Modernism, Spectacle, Representations of German Identity, as well as Memorialization in Germany Since 1945. He has received awards and fellowships from the United States Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies.
Review Quotes:
""Walker writes about contemporary architecture not as a critic but as a sharp-eyed, thought-provoking historian. Berlin Contemporary is a meticulously researched book that raises the bar for the study of recent urbanism; Walker's luscious, flowing prose makes for effortless reading, despite the seriousness of the subject. A formidable achievement."" --Carla Yanni, Distinguished Professor of Art History, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
""A deeply researched book on a city that has, in the course of its reconstruction, arguably become the cultural capital of Europe, Berlin Contemporary grapples with issues of architecture, politics, the public sphere, and memory that have implications for cities around the world."" --Elizabeth Otto, Professor of Modern & Contemporary Art History, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA ""The words 'Reunification of Germany' seem to indicate a singular event. In reality, it is hardly a done deal even today. Approaching the topic in a way that is both sensitive and provocative, Walker's book, interblending history and criticism, helps us see how architecture operates within complex political, geo-political, and cultural environments."" --Mark Jarzombek, Professor of the History & Theory of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA