Potsdamer Platz Modern Architecture

Leipziger Platz is an octagonal plaza defined by its uniform perimeter of stone buildings and a vast, open central garden. It was laid out in the early eighteenth century as a grand baroque entrance to the city, yet the twentieth century…

The Kollhoff Tower rises from Potsdamer Platz with a sharp, dark brick facade modeled after nineteen twenties skyscrapers in New York. While most of the city was flattened during the war, this building arrived in nineteen ninety-nine as a…

The Bahntower rises twenty-six stories over Potsdamer Platz, defined by a facade of green glass and thin, vertical stainless steel fins. It serves as the headquarters for Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company. Helmut Jahn…

The Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz features a sweeping roof of steel and glass that mimics the shape of Mount Fuji. Helmut Jahn designed this complex in the late nineties to reestablish the area as a commercial hub after decades of it…

The Philharmonie Berlin stands out for its jagged, asymmetrical roofline, resembling a golden tent dropped into the center of the city. Architect Hans Scharoun designed this hall after the Second World War with the audience seated in…

The Staatsbibliothek in Tiergarten presents a vast, curved facade clad in weathered, golden-brown aluminum panels. This building houses one of the largest academic collections in the world, split across two main sites in Berlin after the…

The Neue Nationalgalerie sits as a massive, dark steel square held up by eight slender columns. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed this temple to modernism in the nineteen sixties to house twentieth-century art. When it opened, the building…