An Unintended Design Collaboration: Peter Zumthor’s Topography of Terror in Berlin

Abstract

Buildings leave an imprint on a site, yet the power of unrealized designs to shape a site’s future remains relatively unexplored. This article delves into the influences and repercussions of Peter Zumthor’s winning proposal for the Gestapo site in Berlin in 1993. Focusing on the history of the site and the course of design decisions across three failed competitions, this article proposes to understand unrealized architectural competitions as collaborative palimpsests, emphasizing the intended and unintended effects of public memorial designs.

Keywords

• contests
• memory
• history
• overlaying
• co-design