Denkmale in historischen Stadtkarten. Kartierung von Werten aus der Perspektive von Denkmalpflege und Stadtplanung

Abstract

The growing interest in the preservation of historical buildings and structures in the years around 1900 saw growing efforts to record this heritage in registers and inventories. But recording the location of historical buildings for cartographic purposes and depicting them in city plans were also key prerequisites for the emergence of a will to preserve and thus an initial step towards actual preservation. Built heritage again became a subject of discussion and negotiation following the widespread destruction of the Second World War and during the reconstruction that followed. In the course of this research project, numerous city plans were discovered containing cartographic depictions of various kinds of buildings of architectural or historical significance. Starting with a brief historical review of the topic from the early 20th century to the period of postwar reconstruction, this paper presents an overview of these plans, which represent buildings and structures considered worthy of preservation. We examine not only forms of representation but also the authorship and functions of these maps. This raises the question of the role of institutional heritage conservation as an agent in reconstruction processes. Impending loss, on the one hand, and the destruction that had already happened, on the other, were the main motivational and causal factors behind the creation of these maps of historic monuments. This can be seen with reference to the period around 1900 and again with regard to reconstruction during and after the Second World War. City plans were again drawn up in the 1940s to document the built heritage that had survived, drawing on registers of institutional heritage conservation. Creating maps of built heritage was an important prerequisite for dealing with the historical building stock during reconstruction. In some cases, lists of damage to buildings of historical or cultural significance were drawn up with particular exactitude. Furthermore, many planning maps show registers of monuments overlayed with reconstruction plans, from which we can conclude that historical buildings were considered in these plans. The documentation of built heritage and its inclusion in city plans are evidence of interest in its preservation in the years of reconstruction.