Modern Architecture as Ideological Representations: East Berlin, West Berlin, and Hong Kong

Through examining the urban development of West Berlin, East Berlin and Hong Kong, this chapter investigates the various architectural and spatial forms built during the Cold War era as ‘translations’ and ‘representations’ of forms of ideological engineering. Focusing on the notion of Modernism, this chapter unveils the political ideologies behind the architecture in West Berlin and East Berlin, and observes the hybrid spatial typologies that emerged in Cold War Hong Kong. In so doing, the chapter demonstrates the apparent antagonistic political ideologies of the Western and Eastern Blocs in West and East Berlin and showcases their coexistence in Cold War Hong Kong as a meeting point between the East and the West.