Abstract
In the late 19th century, the city officials of Berlin were intent on improving sanitation and hygiene in ‘Old Berlin’, the city’s messy and crowded historic core. While officials believed that demolishing blighted neighborhoods would create a healthier city, they also recognized the need to document disappearing buildings and vanishing streetscapes. Photographs of ‘Old Berlin’ taken between 1860 and 1914 created visual histories of the city: in the earlier period from 1860 to 1890, the images recorded the complex relationship of preservation and progress, whereas after 1900, photographs of the city reflected an historical turn which aestheticized the past into a nostalgic, fixed, eternal moment.
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