With the new shopping, cultural, and residential district at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin has regained a hub that was Europe’s busiest intersection in the 1920s. In the decades following the Second World War, the area was a wasteland along the border separating the two halves of the city. After reunification in 1990, Potsdamer Platz represented a special challenge for urban planners. On 6 September 1992, the Italian architect Renzo Piano won the competition to redesign the area, which covers around 125,000 square meters, and was commissioned with the further planning and artistic direction of the project. Other internationally renowned architects, including Richard Rogers, Giorgio Grassi, Hans Kollhoff, and Helmut Jahn, have left their mark on the site with ambitious designs. Europe’s largest construction site has since become a neighborhood that attracts the people of Berlin and the city’s visitors alike and has hosted Berlin’s International Film Festival since 2000.
The plans for Potsdamer Platz are based on a mixed-use concept that includes housing, office space, retail stores, restaurants, and entertainment. The area’s largest investor is DaimlerChrysler, whose building complex was officially opened on 2 October 1998 after only four years of construction work. The Mercedes-Benz sales headquarters is located here. The Potsdamer Platz Arkaden mall invites shopping and strolling, and the area around Marlene-Dietrich-Platz boasts not only cafés, restaurants, and movie theaters, but also a musical theater, a casino, and several
