Book ID: CBB159764389

Remaking Berlin: A History of the City through Infrastructure, 1920–2020 (2020)

unapi

An examination of Berlin's turbulent history through the lens of its water and energy infrastructures. In Remaking Berlin, Timothy Moss takes a novel perspective on Berlin's turbulent twentieth-century history, examining it through the lens of its water and energy infrastructures. He shows that, through a century of changing regimes, geopolitical interventions, and socioeconomic volatility, Berlin's networked urban infrastructures have acted as medium and manifestation of municipal, national, and international politics and policies. Moss traces the coevolution of Berlin and its infrastructure systems from the creation of Greater Berlin in 1920 to remunicipalization of services in 2020, encompassing democratic, fascist, and socialist regimes. Throughout, he explores the tension between obduracy and change in Berlin's infrastructures. Examining the choices made by utility managers, politicians, and government officials, Moss makes visible systems that we often take for granted. Moss describes the reorganization of infrastructure systems to meet the needs of a new unitary city after Berlin's incorporation in 1920, and how utilities delivered on political promises; the insidious embedding of repression, racism, autarky, and militarization within the networked city under the Nazis; and the resilience of Berlin's infrastructures during wartime and political division. He examines East Berlin's socialist infrastructural ideal (and its under-resourced systems), West Berlin's insular existence (and its aspirations of system autarky), and reunified Berlin's privatization of utilities (subsequently challenged by social movements). Taking Berlin as an exemplar, Moss's account will inspire researchers to take a fresh look at urban infrastructure histories, offering new ways of conceptualizing the multiple temporalities and spatialities of the networked city.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB159764389/

Similar Citations

Multimedia Object Sneha Annavarapu; Gopakumara, Govind; (2020)
Govind Gopakumar, “Installing Automobility: Emerging Politics of Mobility and Streets in Indian Cities” (MIT Press, 2020) (/isis/citation/CBB427729283/)

Book Govind Gopakumar; (2020)
Installing Automobility: Emerging Politics of Mobility and Streets in Indian Cities (/isis/citation/CBB342860952/)

Chapter Katherine W. Rinne; (2010)
Water: The Currency of Cardinals in Late Renaissance Rome (/isis/citation/CBB192434917/)

Book Anna Domizia Bianco; (2007)
Aqua ducta, aqua distribuita. La gestione delle risorse idriche in età romana (/isis/citation/CBB876292839/)

Chapter Karl-Erik Michelsen; (2013)
An Uneasy Alliance: Negotiating Infrastructures at the Finnish-Soviet Border (/isis/citation/CBB153492277/)

Article Tanya Richardson; (2016)
Objecting (to) Infrastructure: Ecopolitics at the Ukrainian Ends of the Danube (/isis/citation/CBB690485778/)

Article Alessio Argentieri; Giovanni Rotella; Lorenzo Grassi; Gianluca Ferri; (2020)
Il lago ottocentesco di Villa Savoia (Roma) (/isis/citation/CBB754431693/)

Book E. van der Vleuten; P. Högselius; A. Hommels; A. Kaijser; Erik van der Vleuten; (2013)
The Making of Europe's Critical Infrastructure: Common Connections and Shared Vulnerabilities (/isis/citation/CBB085424881/)

Book Stefan Höhne; (2021)
Riding the New York Subway: The Invention of the Modern Passenger (/isis/citation/CBB718698808/)

Thesis Wolfson, Mariel Louise; (2012)
The Ecology of a Healthy Home: Energy, Health, and Housing in America, 1960--1985 (/isis/citation/CBB001567387/)

Book Matthew Gandy; (2014)
The fabric of space: Water, modernity, and the urban imagination (/isis/citation/CBB322385433/)

Book Ashley Carse; (2014)
Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure at the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB368970305/)

Book Michèle Dagenais; (2017)
Montreal, City of Water: An Environmental History (/isis/citation/CBB701112149/)

Chapter Elena Longhin; (2022)
Barene and Petrochemicals: The Landscapes of Porto Marghera (/isis/citation/CBB013846017/)

Book Michael Truscello; (2020)
Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure (/isis/citation/CBB993987768/)

Book Giovanni Carrosio; Alessandra Landi; (2023)
Spazio, ambiente, territorio. Teorie, metodi e prospettive di ricerca in sociologia (/isis/citation/CBB971929401/)

Article Tirthankar Roy; (2021)
Water, Climate, and Economy in India from 1880 to the Present (/isis/citation/CBB091354757/)

Authors & Contributors
Gopakumara, Govind
Alessandra Landi
Giovanni Carrosio
Ferri, Gianluca
Rotella, Giovanni
Annavarapu, Sneha
Concepts
Technology and society
Infrastructure
Urban history
Water resource management
Technology and politics
Environmentalism
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
20th century, late
Renaissance
Places
United States
India
Bangalore, India
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Italy
Rome (Italy)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment