More about Berlin
May. 26th, 2008 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishLast time, I left off at Wednesday of the Berlin trip.
Thursday: This was actually rather interesting. Despite the fact that the day started out choppy for me because I wanted to get there early/ on time and was a little annoying about it to the other groupies, we managed to make it to Potsdamer Platz for a bit of an architectural tour of modern Berlin. Our guide was an actual architect who happened to know Prof. from a very early age.
The focus of the tour was the hypothetical architecture for Berlin as the Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania), a vast and sprawling redesign of the city on immense neoclassical lines as envisioned by Adolph Hitler's chief architect, Abert Speer. His design entailed the creation of a giant axis with Victory pillar at the center, and a massive Volkshalle/ Große Halle (People's Hall, Great Hall) that would dwarf all other domed buildings then constructed. The dome, for a sense of scale, would have been a version of the Pantheon 290 meters tall- stand the Washington Monument on top of the Capital Building, and it's still shorter.
Something of that axis still remains in the outline of the streets of Berlin, but certain architects have made a point of destroying it- the State Library of Berlin lies diagonally across the east-west axis and forces the street around it. The new Kanzleramt allows lies directly across the same axis. Berlin is not what it was planned to be, and it's being rebuilt to something that honestly feels rather American in places. I felt very comfortable there, actually.
Thursday evening brought the wonderous powers of the Sissie Musical, which I cannot begin to describe in full here. It shall have to wait for another day or so, just because my brain is not going to let it happen.
Thursday: This was actually rather interesting. Despite the fact that the day started out choppy for me because I wanted to get there early/ on time and was a little annoying about it to the other groupies, we managed to make it to Potsdamer Platz for a bit of an architectural tour of modern Berlin. Our guide was an actual architect who happened to know Prof. from a very early age.
The focus of the tour was the hypothetical architecture for Berlin as the Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania), a vast and sprawling redesign of the city on immense neoclassical lines as envisioned by Adolph Hitler's chief architect, Abert Speer. His design entailed the creation of a giant axis with Victory pillar at the center, and a massive Volkshalle/ Große Halle (People's Hall, Great Hall) that would dwarf all other domed buildings then constructed. The dome, for a sense of scale, would have been a version of the Pantheon 290 meters tall- stand the Washington Monument on top of the Capital Building, and it's still shorter.
Something of that axis still remains in the outline of the streets of Berlin, but certain architects have made a point of destroying it- the State Library of Berlin lies diagonally across the east-west axis and forces the street around it. The new Kanzleramt allows lies directly across the same axis. Berlin is not what it was planned to be, and it's being rebuilt to something that honestly feels rather American in places. I felt very comfortable there, actually.
Thursday evening brought the wonderous powers of the Sissie Musical, which I cannot begin to describe in full here. It shall have to wait for another day or so, just because my brain is not going to let it happen.
