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.
