Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
short of money; today the only connections are those running underground between
the Reichstag and Paul-Löbe-Haus. he Bundeskanzleramt is best appreciated from
the northern banks of the Spree.
Swiss Embassy
he
Swiss Embassy
, just northeast of the Bundeskanzleramt, was one of the few
Neoclassical buildings to survive the war intact. Its 2001 extension, spurred on by the
German government's move back to Berlin, caused some outrage, though experts judge
the two buildings to be a clever play of opposites - not even the floor levels are aligned -
and praise the careful exterior concreting, done in one pour so that no shuttering or
expansion joints are visible.
Die Schlange
At the western end of the government quarter, and best seen from the Spree,
Die
Schlange
(he Snake) is named for its unusual zigzag layout. his brick-clad apartment
block has proved rather unpopular among the parliamentarians it was designed for, as
some apartments stare into one another and because of the odd-shaped rooms - not to
mention high rents and dull surroundings.
Hauptbahnhof
After almost a decade of planning and construction, the landmark glass-and-steel
five-level
Hauptbahnhof
opened in time for the 2006 football World Cup. he look
and scale of this superlative piece of architecture both impress. he Hamburg-based
architects Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkin Marg produced a striking but functional
station - Europe's largest ever - that can handle 300,000 travellers and 1100 trains
per day. Yet it remains an oddity thanks to the barren immediate surroundings,
devoid of Berlin's usual endless gra
ti and the normal mix of late-night bars,
gambling dens and sex shops that surround most of Europe's major train stations.
Here cleanliness, sterility and peacefulness rule, escalators move noiselessly and
even the bins shine.
Like London, Berlin historically had a ring of terminus stations, but as early as the
1930s plans were being drawn up to transform that impractical ring into a cross. After
reunification, the opportunity was seized, and this central station at the crossing point
of the two main west-east and north-south lines was planned. his was the one-time
location of the old Lehrter Bahnhof, which operated from 1871 to 1952 before it was
left to rot alongside Berlin's Cold War dividing line. It is now hailed as a symbolic
central point of Europe, with trains running through between Rome and Copenhagen,
Moscow and Paris.
he
east-west
track already existed, following an 1882 viaduct that wends its
way through the city from Charlottenburg via the Zoo, Friedrichstrasse and
Alexanderplatz stations to the Ostbahnhof, giving rail travellers a wonderful Mitte
sightseeing tour. he new
north-south
line runs four levels further down and 15m
below the Spree. he station's glass hall follows the east-west line, while the gap
between two huge administrative tracts that cross it indicate the direction of the
underground north-south track.
Inside, the building works well. Always quick with a nickname, Berliners soon
christened it the “glass cathedral”, and the basic principles of Gothic-style
construction really are in evidence: supports and weights; the space's upward thrust;
braces resembling Gothic clustered piers; and a series of “vaults”. hough to a casual
observer it may seem more like an airy shopping mall criss-crossed by trains, the
main hall, with its many-layered staircase systems, elevator tubes, skylights and
aperture windows, is also said to be a formal analogy to the feverish spatial fantasies
of the Italian Baroque.
