The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape

by Brian Ladd

So much for diversity and street life, thought some critics, envisioning the area as a desolate zone of self-enclosed office towers. So much for planning, thought others: the decisions had been made before either planners or the public contributed their thoughts. What ensued was a messy set of negotiations between the city, trying to salvage something of Potsdamer Platz’s urban diversity, and the corporate landowners, now functioning as real estate developers. The inevitable result was a compromise between the ideal of the corporate tower and that of critical reconstruction, and between the corporations’ demand for eleven thousand parking spaces and the city’s goal of a lively street scene. Daimler-Benz chose the Italian architect Renzo Piano to create an overall design for its complex of buildings, which were parceled out to several architects building for various clients. Sony chose a design by the German-American Helmut Jahn; ABB, that of another Italian, Giorgio Grassi. As the city demanded, each plan proposed a mixture of uses for the land and buildings, including shopping and a few apartments as well as offices. The result, for many years, was an enormous construction site; how the new Potsdamer Platz functions will not be clear until well into the twenty-first century.