Berlin: Town planning under particular conditions

The development of the Berlin conurbation as a unified living and economic area was interrupted for over 40 years. The reshaping of the old and new capital of Germany is not only to be seen under the aspects of continuity or discontinuity, but also in the context of the reinforced tradition of federalism and decentralism in Germany, and of competition with other European cities. The task of the reintegration of three different parts—West Berlin, East Berlin and the surrounding countryside—requires new concepts for the region and the city. Programmes and draft plans for the entire conurbation as well as the rebuilding and redesigning of the old city centre in accordance with both history and the future function are discussed. How and in what period of time the different plans and measures will be realized remains to be seen. In the meantime, well-thought out options for long-term development have to compete with propositions promising strong impulses for quick economic recovery.     

DDR Museum Berlin

In the summer of 2006 a new permanent exhibition on East Germanhistory opened its doors on the banks of the river Spree, justa frog's jump away from the Berliner Dom and the slowly disappearingPalast der Republik. The DDR Museum¹ sets out to show all facetsof life and growing up in the German Democratic Republic inbasement premises measuring just 400m². The exhibition is composed of seventeen thematic areas, rangingfrom earnest topics such as ‘border’, ‘statesecurity’ and ‘construction’ to the more diverting‘fashion’, ‘consumer goods’ and ‘holidays’.The whole space is designed as a miniature pre-fabricated housingdevelopment, the facades of which incorporate display cabinetsand drawers inviting visitors to explore their contents. Eachthematic area is given roughly the same space, and consequentlythe GDR's dozen or so popular bands get about as much room asthe Stasi.     

Berlin: The Metropolis as a Production Space

Metropolitan regions can be regarded as economic areas comprising various sub-economies with different forms of economic and spatial organization. The purpose of this article is to undertake a critical appraisal of the vision of Berlin as a 'service metropolis' through empirical observation of sectoral trends and locational patterns in the city, and to establish that Berlin's urban area is a major production space with a complex fabric of specialized production districts. This spatial organization will be examined in terms of the level of agglomeration of various sub-economies with special reference to the formation of local enterprise clusters in the Berlin economic area. Berlin's specialization profile and the employment trend in the city compared with other metropolitan cities in Germany make it clear that the metropolis of Berlin is under threat as a production space, and this threat partly stems from the way in which the real estate business has developed in the Berlin area.     

From Berlin to Beijing

In late 1900, while foreign troops occupied Beijing in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion, alarming news reached the German government from China: High-quality works of art were on sale in Beijing and would soon be displayed in museums in London and Paris without having a comparable display in Berlin. The Ethnological Museum in Berlin immediately sent the Orientalist Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Müller (1863–1930) as an envoy to Beijing to buy works of art. Müller was in Beijing between 6 April and 13 September 1901. This article contains a partially annotated translation of Müller’s report, including his packing lists of 117 crates he sent to Berlin in 1901. The original German text is included as an addendum.     

Soziale Stadtentwicklung in Berlin

Abstrakt Sp?testens seit es in den Problemquartieren mehrerer franz?sischer St?dte zu andauernden Unruhen kam, rückte die soziale Entwicklung in den Stadtteilen auch in Deutschland vermehrt ins Bewu?tsein von Politik und Bev?lkerung. So hat sich die neue Bundesregierung zum Bund-L?nder-Programm „Soziale Stadt“ bekannt und führt es zun?chst weiter. Dipl.-Geogr. Ute C. Bauer sprach mit Dipl.-Ing. Kurt Nelius, Stadtplaner im Referat I A, Stadtentwicklungsplanung und Bodenwirtschaft in der Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, über die Schwierigkeiten in den Quartieren der Stadt und Ans?tze zu ihrer L?sung.     

A Berlin for Historians

On his death in 1997 Isaiah Berlin was widely hailed as a leading philosopher of political liberalism. This article takes the position that Berlin's philosophical views, particularly those on freedom and cultural pluralism, can also be construed as a valuable guide for historians working in the present, "postmodernist" climate of debate. It further argues that Berlin's character and career, the subjects already of considerable critical inquiry, lend added authority to these views. The focus is on three lengthy essays on history written by Berlin in the 1950s, one of which was first published in the first issue of this journal. The article concludes, following Berlin, that it is the responsibility of historians, as historians, to recognize the often incommensurate plurality of ultimate values to which their fellow human beings historically have subscribed and to judge, as judge they sometimes must, with that recognition fully in mind. If the result of these as well as the other choices that they make is a plurality of histories, of contending subjects, approaches, methods, and outcomes, that is only to be expected, indeed welcomed. It is freedom in practice, and infinitely preferable as such to any known alternative.     

形象与想象:柏林的都市民族学

<正>首先,我想向各位介绍一下我的两个"家园":一个是我的学术"家园",即欧洲民族学,另一个是我的"家园"城市柏林。我希望这些有关柏林以及我和同事们在那里的工作的概述,能够给大家一些关于我们所说的"都市民族学"的印象。都市民族学这一领域,也是我目前为数不多的"户外"研究范围中的一项工作,它能够使我获得几个小时的时间,得以逃离书桌和各种行政事务。