A plaza much like Berlin – with an aloof charm and cosmopolitan yearnings, and marked by the ups and downs of history. Anyone looking for the hustle and bustle of a big city should visit Alexanderplatz. This is where three subway lines intersect and the tram and S-Bahn urban railway also pass by. Half a million people transfer at “Alex” daily.
The former market place was named after the Russian czar Alexander I in 1805. Through the course of industrialization during which the population grew at dramatic speed, it became the theater of the poor. Its proletarian character was captured by Alfred Döblin in his 1929 novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz.”
Between 1966 and 1970 the plaza developed into East Berlin’s downtown center with a new hotel tower (123 meters high), the Centrum department store (today’s Kaufhof department store), the Haus des Lehrers (teachers’ building from 1961–64), and the nearby Television Tower. The angular Alexanderhaus (office of the Bankgesellschaft Berlin) and the Berolinahaus, built by Peter Behrens in 1930–32, are the only remaining prewar buildings.
The World Clock and “Friendship among Nations Fountain” are representative of GDR design.
source: www.berlin.de
No comments:
Post a Comment