A new book of photographs by Christian von Steffelin, “Palast der Republik,” documents the building from 1994 to 2010, when it was abandoned and demolished. There are photos of the building’s empty interiors, its bare steel and concrete frame, piles of construction rubble, and, finally, the flat patch of ground where it sat. These fine, clear-eyed photos are interspersed with small vintage color shots showing the Palast in its glory days, during receptions and parties, when East Berliners wearing velvet jackets and mini-dresses gathered at the bars and open staircases. The book captures the power of historical time, illustrating how a regime can turn over in a matter of years. And it shows how the layers of materials hidden inside a building (steel, concrete, plaster, wood) are vulnerable to decay and destruction. When stripped of its cladding and carpet the Palast looks absolutely banal, like any other large modern structure. Why was it so charged with political meaning, and why is it being replaced with the replica of a castle?

There’s a growing nostalgia in the city for the formerly communist culture of East Berlin. Vendors on street corners sell the Russian flag, copies of Das Kapital, and toy Trabants. It’s likely that Berliners will, in a few years’ time, remember the Palast der Republik fondly, the same way that New Yorkers remember the old Penn Station and Ebbetts Field. Buildings like these loom large in memory; they never quite disappear.