no more no man's land by alza
With the Daimler-Benz sector built up to gigantic proportions since 1998, it's hard to imagine the former no man's land that was here, between East and West Berlin. This is a huge urgan site, and the one place in Berlin that looked like a metropolis... looking for its soul. It's not a favourite thing for me but it's certainly history in motion. This used to be the heart of pre-war Berlin, the Berlin I would have liked to know. Now it's emerging as the Berlin of the future. "Berlin is the most strictly 'romantic' of cities. Lakes, woods, concrete, gleaming walls, breached walls, ruins, decay, glass, steel, beer, drugs, dirt. Multiple languages, cosmopolitan teeming, hard ideas confronted, unforeseeable artistic proposals. All in a catastrophic and exulting jumble. Leprosy and luxury. Intelligence and creativity along with stagnation and stupidity. A soul, in short, with the sky on top. Stubborn, hardy, wounded, cruel and busy recreating itself without cease." (Berlin, deux temps trois mouvements -- Christian Prigent)
