Framed memories of Berlin: film, remembrance and architecture

Collective memory can be defined as a shared notion of how a social group constructs its past. Architecture and cinema play a major role in the creation of collective memory, buildings by structuring lived experiences and films by framing, re-presenting and fixing those experiences so that they can be collectively revisited. In this study, well-known films of Berlin from throughout the twentieth century, both fiction and non-fiction, are studied to explore their contribution to the memory-making process in a city subject to repeated destruction. In images, the current version of various prominent film locations is juxtaposed with its filmic counterpart, to highlight both continuities and discontinuities and ask after their role in remembrance.