Search

To describe Berlin as a construction site has become a cliché. A report from March 2000 in The Architectural Review reads: “Cranes have dominated Berlin’s skyline [for] the past ten years.” Five years prior, an article in Art in America declared: “Six years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin is coming more and more to resemble a vast construction site.” Cranes and scaffolding can be seen all over the city. But the image of Berlin as a conurbation under construction owes much to Potsdamer Platz. There, evidence of renovation is at its most evident, and because of this Potsdamer Platz has become the incarnation of a city-turned-building-site. Even though other urban locations are undergoing similar transformation, this area is by far the most visible – not only because of its central location where traffic and people converge on the way to Berlin’s most popular sights 3 , but also because of its often dramatic history, which I will outline below.

To describe Berlin as a construction site has become a cliché. A report from March 2000 in The Architectural Review reads: “Cranes have dominated Berlin’s skyline [for] the past ten years.” Five years prior, an article in Art in America declared: “Six years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin is coming more and more to resemble a vast construction site.” Cranes and scaffolding can be seen all over the city. But the image of Berlin as a conurbation under construction owes much to Potsdamer Platz. There, evidence of renovation is at its most evident, and because of this Potsdamer Platz has become the incarnation of a city-turned-building-site. Even though other urban locations are undergoing similar transformation, this area is by far the most visible – not only because of its central location where traffic and people converge on the way to Berlin’s most popular sights 3 , but also because of its often dramatic history, which I will outline below.