IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

Prora is a built structure of 3,25 square kilometers that occupies an important part of the Island of Rügen. The structure has a turbulent history. Initially designed as a gigantic holiday resort of the Nazi organization “Strength-through-Joy,” it was never finished and eventually abandoned during the Second World War. In the communist GDR, Prora was repurposed into a military building and, since German unification, it has become a battleground of conflicting ideas about architectural preservation, lifestyle, and regional development. Propositions have ranged from demands for complete dismantlement and reconstruction to plans for careful historical preservation, and from ideas about turning the site into a cash-cow of modern mass tourism to abandoning it and giving it back to nature. This paper examines the ongoing history of reuse, adaptation, and contestation of Prora. Based on field work, interviews and archival documents, I argue that Prora exemplifies how contradictory historical layers of materiality can become entangled with present day debates about natural protection, regional development, and architectural heritage. Specifically, I show how various stakeholder — including residents of the complex, local communities, heritage activists, government agencies and international investors — have attached different historical meanings to Prora and, upon that basis, projected conflicting futures on the site, the island, and the region. The building has thus become a focal point of broader conflicts in German society after reunification, pointing towards the material hold of the past on social formations in the present.