Since 1989, Berlin has been a city reborn: a phoenix risen fro the ashes of the Second World War and reunited after the division of the Cold War years. The city struggled to pick itself up, but has now regained a position that sees it attract artists, musicians and intellectuals from all over the world. This book has an introductory chapter dedicated to the city's history (indispensable for an understanding of the reasons behind its complex structure and patchwork of styles). It is a tribute to the urban and architectural qualities of the German capital, which, after the fall of the wall, succeeded in recovering its great traditional Brandenburg heritage, cultivating its own vocation for its gardens and parks, and setting out fearlessly into the Third Millennium with futuristic buildings and experimental spaces. The accompanying images provide a fascinating gallery of glimpses and views of the monuments of this city; a city that has managed to blend its different souls and the not-always-consistent effects of history in order to display itself, as it does in this book, as a worthy European metropolis and a capital of art and architecture. AUTHOR: Klaus Hartung was born in 1940 in Olbernhau, Erzgebirge. He spent his school years in the German Democratic Republic before fleeing to West Germany in 1955. He studied in Bonn and Berlin and graduated in sociology in 1974. He works as an editorial consultant, architectural historian, journalist and university professor. In 1980, he began working with the psychiatric hospital in Trieste. He is on the staff of the German daily newspaper Taz (Tageszeitung), for the East Berlin weekly Wochenpost, and works for Zeit in Berlin. He publishes essays on politics, social reform, on the so called "peaceful revolution" and the reunification of Germany. Colour images
