Brussels Institute for Geopolitics – Project 1989

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To gain a clearer sense of our temporal contours, the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics is going back to the previous turning point of 1989. Francis Fukuyama famously asserted that we were experiencing not just the end of the Cold War, but the end of History as such. While it is easy to question such collective illusions today, it is another challenge to undo them. Is it possible to experience the ‘Return of History’ as an opportunity, a trigger to redefine our relations with the rest of the world and to reposition ourselves in time, as Europeans?

In collaboration with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), BIG is publishing a series of witness interviews about this historic moment in time, the ‘Project 1989’. It is supported by the European Cultural Foundation.

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- Essay
Poland’s long farewell to the End of History

Michał Sutowski
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- Interview
Wang Dan: ‘China’s goal is to reshape the world in its image’

Luuk van Middelaar, Rem Koolhaas, Margaux Cassan, Adam Kouki
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- Interview
Hubert Védrine: ‘1989 wasn't the real beginning. The true departure point was much earlier’

Luuk van Middelaar, Rem Koolhaas and Margaux Cassan
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- Interview
Joachim Bitterlich: ‘We had no clear roadmap for reunification’

Luuk van Middelaar
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- Interview
‘I studied capitalist economics to destroy it from the inside’

Interview with Albena Dimitrova

Luuk van Middelaar, Margaux Cassan
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- Interview
‘I wanted to forget about East Germany’

Interview with André Wilkens

Rem Koolhaas, Luuk van Middelaar, Margaux Cassan
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- Interview
‘In 1989, we thought we won the battle’

Interview with Joanna Mytkowska

Luuk van Middelaar
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- Interview
‘The year 1989 was a Big Bang’

Interview with Andrei Grachev

Rem Koolhaas and Luuk van Middelaar