William Cook

Chaotic centre of culture

It’s 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. William Cook on the city’s changing face

issue 07 March 2009

It’s 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down. William Cook on the city’s changing face

On the west bank of the River Spree, beside the old route of the Berlin Wall, there is a building which sums up the strange renaissance of this wonderful, awful city. The Hamburger Bahnhof used to be a train station. During the Cold War it was a ruin. Now it’s an art gallery, Berlin’s answer to Tate Modern. It’s a sign of how Berlin has changed, from the cockpit of the Cold War to Europe’s unofficial cultural capital.

When the Wall came down in 1989, in an avalanche of cheap Sekt and naff graffiti, a lot of people were worried that Berlin would become the centre of a European superstate. Instead it’s become a chaotic centre of the arts. Twenty years later it’s still Europe’s biggest building site, but, beneath the scaffolding, museums and galleries are springing up on every corner.

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