Even before this was taken up in other media, Guratzsch advocated a cautious approach to architectural heritage and urban planning that was oriented towards the traditions of the respective place.
[1] He always advocated private home ownership as well as the preservation and sustainable maintenance of old building quarters - especially those of historism from the Gründerzeit - in West and East.
The Ministry of State Security of the GDR observed Guratzsch suspiciously, his Stasi files [de] comprises 200 pages.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he became involved in numerous reports and reportages as well as in various committees for a history-oriented reconstruction of the city, especially of the Frauenkirche as its centrepiece.
A still growing majority of the population is tired of the abstract, geometric, talmi-like structures that threaten to dominate the image of cities and increasingly approach the chimerical flatness of screen simulations.
The Tag des offenen Denkmals with its pilgrimages of millions of monument visitors has become a mass demonstration against the blandness and weakness of expression of modern architecture.