Reflections on Berlin: The Meaning of Construction and the Construction of Meaning

• A whole new set of state buildings, in a prominently located government center (the German word is more expressive — ‘ Regierungsviertel ’, a ‘quarter for ruling’) at a cost of billions, for a Germany that sees itself as the dominant country in a united Europe; • At Potsdamer Platz, the European headquarters of Sony, a major structure for ABB technologies and the central building for Daimler-Benz-Messerschmidt’s information products and services, oriented to take advantage of the newly opened eastern market, the whole making virtually a second or third city center; • Friedrichstraße, before the war a main commercial axis for Berlin, after the war just another street within the anti-market German Democratic Republic, now striving for a role as the luxury shopping street of Germany, the Fifth Avenue of Berlin; • Huge infrastructure works, a new central railroad station connecting the government center with all Europe, a new auto tunnel under that center, cultural facilities galore, including a new Jewish Museum, and a host of private speculative office buildings; • A proposed ‘Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe’, often referred to as a Holocaust memorial (the German word is ‘Mahnmal’, a ‘warning monument’, rather than simply ‘memorial’, which is‘Denkmal’).