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Re-United
at Last
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Skyline of Berlin |
Berlin is the single city
that has changed immensely over the past 15 years, both physically and
culturally.
Since the dividing
wall was demolished during November 1989 the face of a once battered and
wounded city changed into a city of new spirit of hope and growth.
Stadtmitte, in the old east sector was transformed into a 21st
century metropolis around Potzdamer Platz, the Reichstag and Brandenburg
Archway. |
Since the dividing wall
was demolished during November 1989 the face of a once battered and wounded
city changed into a city of new spirit of hope and growth. Stadtmitte, in
the old east sector was transformed into a 21st century
metropolis around Potzdamer Platz, the Reichstag and Brandenburg Archway.
The U-Bahn and S-Bahn
routes re-united a unified Berlin into the new capital of Germany. During my
previous visit to Berlin in 1973, we were not allowed access as South
Africans into East Berlin. The past week I had the privilege to visit this
cultural city on the banks of the river Spree once again. What a paradise of
contemporary and classical architecture! Only Brasilia and Canberra can
compare slightly to this exposure of the work of world class architects in
the like of Faster, Gehry, Pie, Jahn & Rogers.
Since 1995 a revamping of
the city centre took place, resulting in a concentration of dozens of new
individualistic buildings, exhibiting the nature of steel, concrete, glass
and brick as building materials all in original and innovating designs.
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To list only a few
extraordinary examples of recently completed buildings in the Potsdamer
Platz / Unter Den Linden area:
Sony Centre (a huge
atrium covered by a tent style suspended roof), Reichstag (new seat of
parliament with glass dome and pedestrian central ramp), the Jewish
Museum (a zig zag shaped building, a large walk-in sculpture), the “Band
Des Bundes” (the symbolic link between east and west via a pedestrian
bridge spanning the Spree River). |
Potsdamer Platz: A new city image |
A cruise on an old
steamboat along the Spree, from Mühlendamm Brücke, allows for different
views of the Fernsehturm, the St Nikolai Kirche, Palast de Republik, Alte
National Gelarie and Bode Musuem and obviously all the converted and new
ministerial buildings near the Reichstag.
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Gedächtniskirche with rebuilt tower after war |
A Sunday evening
stroll along the Kurfürstendamm reminds one of the Covent Garden region
in London and resembles the tree lined street of St Kilda in Melbourne.
The atmosphere, during an organ performance in the Kaiser Wilhelm
Gedächtniskirche, created a sacred and comforting environment.
KaDeWe at
Wittenbergplatz offers you, similar to Harrods of London, six floors of
merchandise, mostly with a German flair.
Although the three
airports, (Tiegel, Tempelhof and Schönefeld), servicing Berlin, are still
way behind international standards, various national and low cost carriers
have regularly scheduled flights from Berlin to most European cities.
The Alsterhof Hotel near
Wittenbergplatz has an ideal location on the U1 Metroline and is reasonably
priced with an excellent breakfast included. |
Johann Beukes
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