One hundred years ago journalist Karl Scheffler declared Berlin “a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being”. His words proved prophetic as the 20th Century metropolis experienced alternating waves of construction and catastrophe. Soon after Scheffler penned his statement Weimar era Berlin found itself central to a new Modernist architecture and a rapidly expanding industrial population, resulting in a extensive retooling of the urban infrastructure.
In following decades, after siezing the reins of power, the Nazis would also seek to remake Berlin, this time with a series of megalomaniacal construction projects marching beneath the banner of their “Aryan” aesthetic. Their madness soon resulted in the city being reduced to mountains of rubble by Alled bombing and Soviet artillery.
After the war’s end the rebuilding of the divided city would once again be a proving ground of political influenced architecture as communist and capitalist regimes contended for the creative imaginations deciding the future of postwar Europe. Vast sums were expended in an attempt to demonstrate the desirability and architectonic power of one or the other political system. Finally, as the Iron Curtain fell at the beginning of the nineties, architects and developers attempted to sieze the moment in order to found a unified urban plan for the battered city.
Today the post Reunification landmarks are familiar: the Reichstag Dome, Potsdamer Platz, and the new government quarter are visited by millions of tourists each year seeking to find the ‘new’ Berlin. But Babylon on the Spree, as ever, is not yet finished becoming. Countless building projects around the city testify to Berlin’s dynamism and ever changing nature. Here’s a short list of the projects currently in the works and on the streets.
