After the Ruins explores the remnants of landscape design and public open spaces in the former GDR. Concrete planters, waste bins, and seating made from exposed aggregate concrete, with their functional, understated design, once shaped many public spaces of East German modernism. Today, much of this urban furniture has already disappeared or is increasingly being replaced by contemporary alternatives. As these objects vanish, part of the GDR’s architectural and cultural heritage also disappears from the everyday urban landscape and from collective awareness.

For the installation, the artist collective Situation Room reconstructed various concrete elements at a 1:1 scale and stacked them into a sculptural formation. The arrangement evokes the aesthetics of an imagined archaeological ruin, its stacked forms recalling ancient columns. Situated on the green space of a demolished prefabricated apartment building (Plattenbau), the installation removes these endangered elements of urban furniture from their original functional context and recontextualises them as cultural relics. The work raises the question of why ancient ruins are regarded as cultural heritage worthy of preservation, while the architectural legacy of the GDR is frequently devalued, altered, or demolished.

The installation was accompanied by a souvenir stand offering baseball caps featuring motifs of GDR-era concrete planters.