Regime art, subservient to the Party’s needs – or a visionary movement in dialogue with the heights of international modernism? Even more than 35 years after the end of the German Democratic Republic, forming a judgment on the communist regime’s architecture that goes beyond the usual clichés – from Plattenbau to the TV Tower – remains anything but easy. A new exhibition, opened on May 24 at Berlin’s Tchoban Foundation, takes up the challenge.

“Pläne und Träume – Gezeichnet in der DDR” (Plans and Dreams – Drawn in the GDR) showcases a selection of original drawings by East German architects, spanning the entire history of the country: from the 1950s, marked by postwar austerity and Stalinist baroque opulence, to the postmodern gestures of the 1980s. Curators Kai Drewes and Wolfgang Kil have carefully balanced well-known names and iconic works with lesser-known figures from East Germany’s architectural scene, always ensuring, as they emphasized during the press preview, that “the eye had its share.”

The results speak for themselves: the beauty of the drawings is undeniable. On the one hand, they cast familiar cities and streets in a new light; on the other, they offer a glimpse of what might have been. Among the ruins of Dresden, Stalinist-style skyscrapers emerge, while shortly before the fall of the Wall, Friedrichstrasse comes alive with opulent shopping arcades.

It’s not only the architectural projects – featured in the eponymous section of the exhibition – that guide us through a captivating journey of what ifs; the “Dreams” section, in particular, invites the imagination. Sometimes dreamlike, as in Michael Kny’s Towers of Babel; at other times irreverent, like the beautiful and surreal balconies by Lutz Brandt, which generous viewers might read as a visionary prefiguration of today’s DIY architecture movements.

With its two-part structure and meticulous curatorship, the exhibition serves as a poignant reminder that, in the everyday reality of Honecker and Mielke’s regime – marked by censorship, conformism, and repression – the separation between public duties and private ambitions was a painful yet inevitable necessity. Even for this reason alone, a visit to the Tchoban Foundation's galleries is well worth it.

Opening image:  Photo Noel Nicolaus