Paper short abstract:

This paper focusses – in a relational perspective – on the specific role of historical narratives in the urban placemaking of Vienna and Berlin: While Vienna seems to be a city of retrospective historicity, Berlin is always considered as the permanent-changing metropolis of industrial modernity.

Paper long abstract:

The urban imaginaries of Vienna and Berlin are - to follow Gerald D. Suttles' concept of the "cumulative texture of local urban culture" - based on two contradictory and complementary narratives concerning history: Vienna as the city of a unhurried, nostalgic and retrospective way of life, Berlin as the city of speed, electricity and industrial modernity. While Vienna seems to be an entirely "historical" city, Berlin is mostly considered as a metropolis of change, "condemned forever to becoming and never to being" (Karl Scheffler, 1910). Thus, the two urban narratives concentrate in the antagonism of historicity / ahistoricity. In my paper I will analyse the ways in which the historical imaginary of Vienna and Berlin has developed relationally: Without the idea of Berlin as permanent change, Vienna wouldn't have become the city of "good old times" - and vice versa. The view of the two capitals in Prussia and Austria cannot be separated from each other - it must be told as an integral "Tale of two cities" and a complementary vision of two paths of modernity, "inner urbanization" (Gottfried Korff) and urban life. In short, I would like to show the importance of a relational perspective on historical narratives in urban placemaking. Moreover, the "habitus of the city" shall be presented as the effect of economical structure, everyday practice and a certain image of urban historicity.