Battleship Berlin

The director, Nathan Eddy, intervened personally to prevent the demolition and discuss how to save two controversial Berlin buildings dating back to the Cold War: the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine (Fehling and Gogel, 1966-1974) and the former Central animal laboratory (Gerd and Magdalena Hänska, 1971-1981) known as the Mouse Bunker because of the experiments carried out there. Opposing the Charité, the city’s hub of university hospitals, is a large band of politicians, conservationists, architects, gallery owners and students fighting to convert the two emblematic structures. This is an ongoing battle over the historical value of buildings from the recent past in terms of a city’s cultural identity, and it could become a case study for similar situations elsewhere in Europe.