‘Healing a wound’: from neglected East German relic to lauded art gallery

German billionaire restores Minsk cafe in Potsdam as showpiece of socialist realist architecture

For almost three decades it appeared to have been consigned to the scrap heap of history, a relic of East German communism considered as redundant and unsightly as the Berlin Wall and destined to fall victim to the wrecking ball.

But a former terrace cafe in the city of Potsdam, just west of Berlin, is being lauded as a showpiece of socialist realist architecture having been saved from demolition by a billionaire German businessman who has recast it as an art gallery.