Atlantica - 01.01.2006, Page 33

AT L A N T I CA 31
MOTHER DID IT NEED TO BE SO HIGH?
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961, dividing the city in two.
The Wall was over 155km long. By 1962, a second parallel
wall was built about 90 meters inward, creating a no-man’s
land between the two barriers. The wall lasted only 28
years, opening up for unrestricted transit on 9 November,
1989. There are still a few sections of Wall left standing.
One stretch is just southeast of Potsdamer Platz, close
to the Topography of Terror Museum; the second is along
the Spree River near Oberbaumbrücke; and the third at
Bernauerstrasse, now the Berlin Wall Memorial.
were suddenly blocks of undeveloped, prime real estate smack in the center
of the city.
The construction began almost immediately, and today Potsdamer Platz
is a hyper modern urban center, a shrine to capitalism, dominated by glass
high rises housing such epic corporations as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Sony;
numerous law offices and shopping malls; and movie theaters. (For those
who don’t like to hear movie stars like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes speak-
ing German, check out the Sony Center, which shows the latest Hollywood
releases without dubbing.)
The most prominent addition to the Potsdamer Platz landscape is the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a grid pattern of 2,711 concrete
slabs of various heights arranged in a staccato pattern. Designed by the
American architect Peter Eisenman, and built between 2003 and 2005, the
Memorial allows for the visitors to walk through it, crisscrossing through the
maze of stones.
“From far away, it seems like a graveyard,” says Umberta, a 19-year-old
student from Genoa, Italy. “When you walk in it you get a feeling of loneli-
ness, but also of hope, because you can also see the exit, the surrounding
buildings, so you know there is a way out.”
While the memorial is, of course, a solemn place of reflection, built
roughly 300 meters south of Hitler’s bunker, it’s also located in the middle
of the city, meaning Berliners pass by it constantly. As I walk in it, I see kids
skirting around the stones, screeching and giggling as they play hide and seek
with their parents.
Opposite page: Capitalism on the rise in Potsdamer Platz; above: the governmental library, and offices of parliament along the Spree River.
BERLIN a
034-41ATL106 Berlin.indd 31 17.12.2005 12:06:49