Berliners are divided when it comes to preserving Communist-era buildings.

Many say they are architectural aberrations and scars of a regrettable past, while a sizable minority — many of them younger architects, artists and designers — argue that the 60's and 70's buildings have a gawky, historically particular beauty. For more than a decade a citywide debate raged over the fate of the boxy, copper-colored-glass 1976 Palace of the Republic, which served as the East German parliament building. Preservationists ultimately lost that battle and the building is being razed to make way for a replica of the Stadtschloss, a Baroque castle demolished by the East German government in 1950.

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