Los Angeles vs. Berlin: How Should New Cities Deal With Their Pasts?

It could be said that Los Angeles has too little history and Berlin has too much. Los Angeles sits on the western edge of the New World, barely inhabited until a population boom this century, but the historical home to a series of seekers — from colonizers to immigrants to would-be movie stars and oil prospectors — who made homes in the city as they erased its past, particularly its Mexican roots. Berlin sits in the center of the Old World, the site of centuries of conflict, the most recent of which left the city divided, in ruins. But both cities today are in a moment of transition. Berlin is still being built, or rebuilt, after reunification two decades ago as the center of a newly united Europe. Los Angeles has recently faced a major wave of immigration, a sprawling eastward expansion and downtown renaissance, and a severe economic bust. How should Berlin and Los Angeles — where residents daily encounter and interact with the vestiges of history, the ghostly sites of demolition, and the clatter of construction — build for the future? Zócalo hosted a panel of historians and architects — including moderator Peter Tokofsky of the Getty Museum, Roger Sherman of Roger Sherman Architecture & Urban Design; urban historian Greg Hise; GRAFT Architects Founding Partner Wolfram Putz; Dorothee Brantz of the Technische Universität; and Niklas Maak, architecture critic for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — to discuss what to preserve of the past, what to pave over, and how to plan and build civic identities for two notoriously changing cities. This event was made possible by a generous grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation of Los Angeles.