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.
