Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ous and impressive, it immediately racked up accolades, including the prestigious award
from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2010.
With its cool and calm facade, the DZ Bank on Pariser Platz seems untypical for its ex-
uberant architect, Frank Gehry. The surprise, though, lurks beyond the foyer leading to a
light-flooded atrium anchored by an enormous sci-fi-esque stainless-steel sculpture used
as a conference room.
Recent Developments & the Future
You'd think that the ballet of cranes would finally have disappeared more than 25 years after
reunification, but there are still plenty of large-scale projects on the drawing board or under
construction. In 2014 the first spies started moving into the new Berlin home of the Bun-
desnachrichtendienst (BND; Germany's foreign intelligence agency) on Chausseestrasse,
just north of the Scheunenviertel. Designed by Kleihues + Kleihues, the giant compound sits
on a lot once occupied by the GDR-era Stadium of the World Youth.
The City West has also garnered several high-profile additions including the towering
Waldorf Astoria Hotel and the reborn Bikini Berlin. For decades regarded as a 1950s archi-
tectural icon of the city's post-WWII revival, the latter reopened as a chic shopping mall in
late April 2014 in a spectacularly rehabilitated building. The curious name was inspired by
its design: two 200m-long upper and lower sections are separated by an open floor suppor-
ted by a curtain of columns. Today the middle section is chastely covered by a glass facade.
The current reconstruction of the Berliner Stadtschloss, the former Prussian city palace,
on Schlossplatz, across from Museumsinsel, is to be known as Humboldt-Forum; it will
only resemble its historic predecessor from the outside, with the modern interior housing
museums and cultural institutions.
The opening of Berlin's Brandenburg Airport in Schönefeld has been delayed indefinitely.
A referendum in May 2014, however, prevented the city from partly developing Tempelhof
Airport, which closed in 2008. Much to the delight of Berliners, it will remain a public
park.
