The wounds left behind by allied air-raids on Dresden in February 1945 could not be heeled by the reconstruction of the GDR. A great many of the city's specific features were lost for ever.

The bastion ring, which splits the core city and the new districts, will be recreated as a wide metropolitan boulevard. Two cubical towers flank Pirnaischer Platz as a gateway to the city of the 19th century and put the GDR tower blocks into context.