art:berlin - Städtebau West: Around Ernst-Reuter-Platz

We dare to take a critical look back at an inspiring future that the municipality of Berlin defined during the 1950s with a far-reaching, urban development departure. At the former traffic junction "Knie", "the new face" of Berlin emerged, centred on the western districts. Instead of concentrating on the old splendour of Kurfürstendamm, something new was created here with unbridled self-confidence: dynamic motorisation combined with an unprecedented opening up of urban development for sophisticated individual buildings from culture and business. Equal to the office buildings of the global corporations Osram and Telefunken, the scientific potential of the new city centre expanded with the Technical University and the University of the Arts, today the UdK. The walk shows how much the innovations of that time are still recognisably interwoven with the city's history. Against the backdrop of the current cultural changes between Ernst-Reuter-Platz, Steinplatz and Savignyplatz, one encounters interesting traces of influential artists, including the Bauhäusler, politicians, gallery owners and innovative shopkeepers everywhere.