There had also been plans for high-rise structures to house the institutions of the state – such as the Greater Berlin art exhibition of 1927 and the competition for the extension of the Reichstag and the design of Platz der Republik. But none of these plans ever came to fruition. Highrises were to dominate the city - private highrises, above all office blocks and not the public buildings and churches that had defined the city in the past. ![]() The winner of the first prize, Cornelius van Eesteren, proposed a radical demolition of the boulevard and the construction of new, tiered buildings (mainly office spaces), culminating in a 100 meter highrise at the intersection with Friedrichstraße.Īll of these projects aimed at creating a completely new skyline for the center of Berlin as well as its clear westward migration. In 1925, during a period of relative economic stability, a competition was organized by two journals for the redesign of the Unter den Linden boulevard, at that time Berlin’s most prestigious street. Better known is the competition for the erection of a highrise at Friedrichstraße station initiated by the Turmhausakteingesellschaft company and for which Mies van der Rohe developed a design for a glass structure - providing a sharp contrast to the traditional structure of the city. Bruno Möhring’s plans for tower blocks covering the entire historic city center, developed within just a quarter of year after the Greater Berlin Act came into force, have been largely forgotten. During the latter stages of the Weimar Republic, Hilbesheimer presented plans for the demolition of the city center (1928) as well as the city’s historical quarters (1932/33). Perhaps the most radical visionary of the age was Ludwig Hilberseimer, professor of urban planning at the Bauhaus in Dessau. High-rise buildings were recommended for every available location. There was no shortage of ideas and suggestions for a new design for the city center - particularly from architectural experts. The question now was how to create a new center for a city of such dimensions? One thing was clear: It had to be a center fitting of a world city. Greater Berlin had already essentially long existed at that time, at least in economic and social terms. ![]() The official creation of Greater Berlin on 1 October 1920 radically altered the spatial-political situation without initially changing the layout of the city in any way. Mitte: a center worthy of the status of world city The result was greeted with applause from the left and with boos from the parties of the right.” Of the 317 votes cast, there were 5 abstentions, with 164 members voting in favor and 148 against. The Final Vote”, the Berliner Volks- Zeitung wrote: “At the start of today’s session of the state assembly, the final vote on the bill for the establishment of the municipality of Greater Berlin was taken. Beneath the headline “Greater Berlin Becomes Reality. The daily papers only gave passing attention to this event. During these dark days, the Prussian state assembly decided on 27 April 1920 to create Greater Berlin (or the new urban municipality of Berlin as it was termed): a decision which was to prove controversial and hard to implement for decades to come. ![]() The future for Berlin and the entire country looked grim and hopeless. The Kapp Putsch of March 1920 shocked Berlin and all of Germany. The city’s municipalities had proven incapable of developing measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic. ![]() An entity without its own real identity but consisting of several smaller identities.ġ920 was a dreadful year and people had other concerns: The deadly Spanish flu, which claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people in Greater Berlin between 19, had still not finished its course of destruction. Overnight, a megacity was born with an area of 878 square kilometers as opposed to the previous 66 and a population of nearly 3.9 million compared with the previous figure of 1.9 million inhabitants. In 1920, Berlin was created as we know it today: large and rambling, thrown together from 8 cities, 59 rural municipalities and 27 estate districts.
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