Before the Peaceful Revolution, the GDR had applied for the inclusion of the Potsdam Palaces and Gardens in the UNESCO World Heritage List in September 1989. In December 1990, the Potsdam Cultural Landscape was officially added. This includes not only Sanssouci Palace with its expansive parklands and historic buildings and the New Garden with the Marble Palace and Cecilienhof Palace but also the Schloss and garden complexes in Glienicke, which were located in West Berlin before German reunification, as well as Peacock Island. Later, additional areas of the Potsdam Cultural Landscape were added to the list. With the establishment of the federal state of Brandenburg in October 1990, Potsdam officially became the capital of the state.
At this time, the traces of Germany’s division were still clearly visible in the city. In addition to the Soviet-Russian soldiers present in the city until 1994 and the remaining border facilities to West Berlin, the GDR had left behind visibly dilapidated historic buildings. Large parts of the Potsdam city center resembled a neglected demolition district. The socialist concrete buildings also added to the city skyline, inadequately supplementing the image of the centuries-old cultural landscape. One of the first decisive decisions made by the city council, which had been freely and democratically elected for the first time since 1933 in May 1990, was therefore the "gentle re-approach to the characteristic, evolved historical cityscape."
Over the next three decades, this led to intensive construction activity. The Dutch Quarter, with its characteristic brick houses, which had been under monument protection since 1979, was declared the city's first redevelopment area. Large parts of Potsdam's city center from the early 18th century, as well as the weaver's houses in Babelsberg-North and the streets from the Gründerzeit period in Babelsberg-South, followed as redevelopment areas.
In the 1990s, housing in the city center was scarce due to unclear property ownership, building decay, and high vacancy rates. Squatters declared about 20 buildings as "alternative housing forms," and during their evictions, there were repeated riots, street battles, and arrests by the police. To meet the housing demand, a completely new district, Kirchsteigfeld, was built on the southeastern edge of the city between 1991 and 1997, with 2,500 apartments, schools, daycare centers, sports and leisure facilities, green spaces, and a church.
The Bornstedter Feld, which had been used for military purposes for more than 250 years, was redeveloped as a residential area starting in the 2000s after the final withdrawal of Russian troops in 1994. The redevelopment was carried out with the goal of preserving and reusing the historically significant barracks buildings. A decisive factor for the development of the area was the city's application for the Federal Garden Exhibition (BUGA). Today, the former BUGA park, now a public park in the northern part of Potsdam, forms the green center of the district and connects the royal gardens of Sanssouci with the Bornimer Feld.
The existing GDR-planned residential areas in the districts of Drewitz, Stern, Schlaatz, and Waldstadt were further developed in recent years in terms of housing quality, social compatibility, and climate neutrality to accommodate the growing population. In 1989, Potsdam had approximately 141,000 inhabitants, but after a decline to about 127,000 in 1999, the population began to grow steadily again. With the controversial incorporation of Golm and the villages of Groß Glienicke, Fahrland, Neu Fahrland, Marquardt, Satzkorn, and Uetz-Paaren as part of the administrative territorial reform in 2003, the city area expanded by 78 to 187 square kilometers. The population immediately grew by 11,000 people. Potsdam welcomed its 180,000th citizen in November 2019.
In April 1992, the S-Bahn connection to Berlin, which had been interrupted since the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, was reopened, and between 1992 and 1999, the – not uncontroversial – redesign of Potsdam’s central station was planned and realized.
New buildings, particularly those designed in historical styles or modern architecture, such as the new central station and the reconstruction of the Garnisonkirche, have been subject to controversial discussions in the city. The public was therefore directly involved in key urban planning decisions. After the Brandenburg state parliament's decision in May 2005 for a new parliament building on the historic site of the Stadtschloss, which had been demolished in 1959/60, the majority of Potsdam’s citizens voted in a referendum for a parliament building on the site of the old Stadtschloss at the Old Market. After only four years of construction, the new state parliament building was opened in 2014. With the buildings along the Old Ride around the Barberini Museum and the new downtown districts on the site of the former university building demolished in 2018, the Old Market is once again becoming the center of Potsdam.
In 2012, the citizens of Potsdam also determined the location for a new family, fun, and sports pool at the foot of the Brauhausberg, which was completed in 2017. It complements, among other things, the numerous recreational sports facilities at the airship harbor, where elite athletes have been preparing for competitions since the 1960s. Today, there is an Olympic base for canoe racing, rowing, athletics, swimming, and wrestling.
With its five universities and numerous other non-university research institutions, Potsdam has also established itself as a major national and international scientific hub. Since October 2019, in recognition of the city’s more than 100-year film tradition in Babelsberg, the city has held the UNESCO title "Creative City of Film."
(Author: Dr. Johannes Leicht, Geschichtslotsen)
