Prefabricated housing: A new perspective on old settlements

In the second half of the 20th century, residential high-rise buildings made of prefabricated concrete slabs were built in many parts of the world. They were particularly popular in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), where they became known as " Plattenbauten " (prefabricated buildings). They still dominate the image of many cities in East Germany , and some are now listed as historical monuments.

Many people today simply find the buildings ugly. But the Kunsthaus Potsdam looks at them from a completely different perspective. The exhibition "Residential Complex: Art and Life in the Prefabricated Building" examines the cultural legacy of these prefabricated buildings as the "heart of GDR social policy," a "site of socialization," and a "symbol of real socialist progress," as the website states. The focus is not on the architectural heritage, but on the prefabricated building as a "cultural resonance space that raises questions of belonging, community, and memory."

Exhibition curator Kito Nedo, born in Leipzig in the 1970s – during the heyday of the prefabricated housing project – says he only realized late in life how these housing projects, as a "socialization environment," had shaped him and his life. And he's not alone in this; after all, many people lived in these neighborhoods and thus shared "a collective residential memory," which is reflected in some of the artworks, Nedo told DW. The aim of the exhibition is to make the many facets of the prefabricated housing project visible, without forgetting that the housing complexes were also the scene of a "painful transformation" triggered by German reunification .

Housing shortage - a permanent problem

Finding affordable housing in big cities has been a difficult issue for at least 200 years, says Kito Nedo. And even today, the situation in many parts of the world seems to be getting worse rather than better.

After the end of World War II, the housing shortage in Germany was clearly a problem. Many cities were destroyed by bombing raids. The influx of German refugees from the East exacerbated the problem. Renovating old buildings was expensive, especially since many old buildings had no heating or running hot water. Bathrooms were often communal spaces outside the apartments.

As an alternative, the Central Committee (ZK) of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) launched its housing construction program in October 1973, promising to eliminate the housing shortage within the next two decades. This was well received, and demand for the newly built apartments was huge. Moreover, the new housing complexes were not only promoted as a modern solution for accommodating large numbers of people: the SED leadership praised them as the embodiment of the socialist utopia.

Part of this idealistic vision was the integration of schools, kindergartens, commercial spaces, cultural centers, and youth clubs into the residential complexes. Rents were subsidized by the state and could therefore be kept low, which, from an economic perspective, was, of course, an "economically negative mission," according to Kito Nedo.

Painful change after the fall of the Berlin Wall

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and the former utopia soon became a dystopia. After German reunification, many of the GDR's state-owned industrial enterprises were closed down, leading to high unemployment in the urban areas that had once been developed specifically for working-class families.

People's increasing desperation translated into extremism . Today, the post-reunification years are also referred to as the "baseball bat years," a reference to the many neo-Nazis who ran around armed with baseball bats. The number of right-wing extremist violent crimes skyrocketed during this time, culminating in xenophobic riots in cities like Hoyerswerda and Rostock-Lichtenhagen.

This aspect, too, is part of the legacy of prefabricated buildings and is addressed in the Potsdam exhibition, including an installation by artist Henrike Naumann, who will represent Germany at the 2026 Venice Biennale . In her installation "Triangular Stories (Amnesia & Terror)," Naumann recreates two corners of prefabricated apartment rooms and shows videos of two youth groups from the early 1990s. One video shows a group of ravers getting high on drugs, while the other features three neo-Nazis hanging around—a staged version of the young people who would go on to found the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist organization a few years later.

Personal interpretations allowed

Curator Kito Nedo wants the artworks to speak for themselves. His selection focuses on art that expresses a certain ambivalence and allows for diverse interpretations.

In "Grauzone," Berlin artist Markus Draper recreates the skeletons of faceless prefabricated buildings. The zinc casts are replicas of the apartment blocks in which RAF terrorists hid with the help of the Stasi in the 1980s.

The curator was particularly moved by a series of paintings and drawings by the artist Sabine Moritz. She reproduces details of her childhood in the 1970s in Lobeda, a prefabricated housing suburb of Jena. The style of her drawings is naive, but her personal memories are very precise and reflect those of many people – after all, almost a quarter of the total population of the GDR lived in such a housing estate at some point.

After decades of being considered a problematic relic of the GDR, prefabricated buildings are now receiving a new kind of attention. Various exhibitions in Germany are exploring the architectural legacy of that era, including the "Betonfestival" in Chemnitz (September 27–October 18, 2025) and"Platte Ost/West" at the Dresden City Museum (February 28–November 29, 2026).

Kito Nedo emphasizes that the point is not to celebrate "Ostalgie"—that is, nostalgia for the former GDR. Prefabricated housing estates have long been ignored and forgotten by large sections of the population. He sees the exhibitions as an opportunity to draw attention to them again and perhaps also as a "plea to engage with them."

Adapted from English: Petra Lambeck