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When one thinks of the buildings of Western European, perhaps he or she recalls the castles of Great Britain, the chateaus of France, or even the cathedrals, like St. Peter's or the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. These buildings, while being initially linked by their beauty, also have something else in common - their age.
However, Germany's capital city, Berlin, is a little different.
Berlin is a city that is constantly in flux. Residents can leave the city, even for periods as short as one year, and come back to find that major changes have taken place. Cranes dominate large portions of the sky, even challenging the tallest buildings for space, and construction workers, noted by their blue overalls, can be spotted everywhere. Berlin is a very modern city amid the rest of Western Europe.
Its history is one that is both recent and extremely focused on construction. Really, many of the buildings are less than fifteen years old; however, they are cleverly designed to look much older. With the devastation of the city in both of the World Wars, and later the construction of the Berlin Wall, many of the oldest buildings never had a chance for survival. Now, new, modern buildings are being erected in their places.
Take the area of Potsdamer Platz, for example. During the period that the Wall was up (1961-1989), this former city center was in no-mans-land and thus went unused for decades. After the Wall fell, people were quick to return to this area. The government responded by trying to restore Potsdamer Platz to its former prominence. Construction crews were brought in, and now Potsdamer Platz is again a city center; albeit, now it is the home to the futuristic Sony Center and other technologically modern buildings.
One of the problems with the past-Wall rebuilding is that oftentimes these construction projects were designed on such a massive scale that funding simply ran out. Half-finished buildings and unused cranes are also numerous, and they are a testament to the over ambitiousness of many projects.
However, once they are completed, these buildings are beautiful examples of what modern architects are capable of. Looking at the new Sony Center or the old Reichstag, one cannot help but be amazed, and surely once construction is finished in places like Alexander Platz and the new main train station (Hauptbahn Lehrter), the areas will be equally impressive.
If one thing is certain, it is that even before construction is finished in these places, more new construction will have begun somewhere else in Berlin. |
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