Potsdamer Platz
SONY CENTER, DAIMLER COMPLEX, LEIPZIGER PLATZ, ARKADEN, KULTURFORUM
Potsdamer Platz is a futuristic square and intersection that has became a symbol for the division and the unification of Berlin. During the DDR regime the Berlin Wall went right through this place, once a lively square, then a wasteland. In the early 1990s, after the unification of Germany, Potsdamer Platz became Europe's largest construction site, and now it is once again a very lively place. It is also one of the most modern places in Berlin nowadays, thanks to all new highrise buildings and other innovative structures designed by world famous architects. The masterplan was made by Renzo Piano, including ultramodern office towers, residential buildings, de luxe hotels and a large shopping mall. The most famous is the shopping and entertainment complex Sony Center with its glass tower and the Daimler complex. The annual Berlin film festival is held at the theater at Potsdamer Platz. The squareis situated in Mitte, close to Tiergarten and Brandenburger Tor. The site has been critized for being Americanized and capitalized. Also look at the Views from Kolhoff Tower site and Berlin by night part 2.
Kolhoff Tower and DB Bahn Tower on Potsdamer Platz seen from Leipzier Strasse.
Traffic jam at the octagonal Leipzier Platz, just next to Potsdamer Platz.
Potsdamer Platz highrise cluster seen from Pariserplatz at Brandenburger Tor. To the right is the entrance to the large park Tiergarten.
Skyline of Potsdamer Platz from the left; Piano Hochhaus (by Renzo Piano and Kohlbecker), Kolhoff Tower (by Hans Kolhoff) and Sony Center (by Helmut Jahn).
Sony Center
The second largest part went to Sony, who erected their new European headquarters on a triangular site immediately to the north of Daimler-Benz and separated from it by the re-routed Potsdamer Straße. This new Sony Centre, designed by Helmut Jahn, is an eye-catching monolith of glass and steel featuring an enormous tent-like conical roof, its shape reportedly inspired by Mount Fuji in Japan, covering an elliptical central public space up to 102 metres across, and thus differing substantially from Hilmer & Sattler's original plan for the site. Its 26-storey, 103-metre-high "Bahn Tower" is so named because it houses the corporate headquarters of Deutsche Bahn AG, the German state railway system.
Surviving parts of the former Hotel Esplanade have been incorporated into the north side of the Sony development, including the Kaisersaal which, in a complex and costly operation in March 1996, was moved in one piece (all 1,300 tonnes of it), some 75 metres from its former location, to the spot that it occupies today (it even had to make two right-angled turns during the journey, while maintaining its own orientation). Nearby is a new Café Josty, opened early in 2001, while between the two is "Josty's Bar," which is housed in the Esplanade's former breakfast room. This, like the Kaisersaal, had to be relocated, but here the room was dismantled into some 500 pieces to be reassembled where it stands now.
Topped out on 2 September 1998, the Sony Centre was formally opened on 14 June 2000 (although many of its public attractions had been up and running since 20 January), in another grand ceremony with more music - this time with Sony's Japanese Chairman Norio Ohga himself conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. A keen lover of classical music, he had helped to choose the site because of its close proximity to the orchestra's home in the Cultural Forum. Source: Wikipedia
DB Bahn Tower, 103m tall.
Glitzy facades: DB Bahn Tower and Kolhoff Tower from below.
Sony Center opened in 2000. This is the futuristic circular atirum with panorama elevators, palms and fountains.
It is surrounded by restaurants and movie theaters, like the Cinestar Event.
The partly open circular roof of Sony Center's atrium.
Part of the surviving parts of Kaisersaal.
DB Tower and Kolhoff Tower seen from Sony Center's open atrium.
Part of Berlin film festival.
Escalator to heaven.
Beisheim-Center from 2004 consist of two 70m tall highries, Delbruck House and the de luxe hotel Ritz-Carlton.
Traffic jam at the futuristic Potsdamer Platz. Piano Hochhaus (right) from 1999 and Stresemanstraße (front) where the Berliner Wall stood.
Bahnhof Potsdamer Platz underground station. Built in 2005.
DB Tower and Kolhoff Tower seen from the wide Potsdamer Strasse.
Sony Center from Potsdamer Strasse.
The entrance to the panorama deck at Potsdamer Platz 1 (Kolhoff Tower). You can see the views here.
Daimler Complex and Potsdamer Arkaden
Potsdamer Arkaden is a large, very long shopping mall in 3 floors, just next to Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz. It is part of the Daimler building complex, that was designed by the famous architect Renzo Piano.The complex was finished in 1998. It is huge, Daimler has partly abandoned the building complex, that consists of 19 buildings, of which 3 highrises.
Debis Tower, the office of Daimler's subsidary Debis, is the tallest skyscraper at Potsdamer Platz. It is 106m tall to the spire.
Debis Tower (right) opened in 1999 as the tallest building around Potsdamer Platz. The greenery in the middle is Tilla Durieux Park.
The Daimler complex Potsdamer Arkaden seen from the intersection Alte Potsdamer Str/Varian-Fry-Str.
The Arkaden features 133 stores along a 180m long atrium with glass roof.
A model of Potsdamer Platz inside the mall.
Some new de luxe hotels, like the Grand Hyatt, are situated around the Daimler complex.
Parts of the Berlin wall that once went right through Potsdamer Platz are preserved. "Die mauer" was torned down in the early 1990s.
Contrasts: The wall and the new skyscrapers.
A faked DDR soldier at Berliner Mauer.
Around Potsdamer Platz:
Chamber Music Hall, part of the Kulturforum Berlin at Potsdamer Platz.
The Spielbank (casino), the State Library (Staatsbibliothek, yellow rigfht), the Musicaltheater (red to the left) and Debis Tower (tall building to the left).
Kulturforum from above, including Philharmonie and Chamber Music Hall, built in 1950s and 1960s. The park in the back is Tiergarten.
A large construction site at Leipziger Platz, next to Potsdamer Platz. A large shopping mall will open here, it is the former site of the Wertheim department store.
Science Center Medizintechnik, a futuristic curvy building at Eberstrasse.
"You are leaving the American sector".
St Matthew Church, a church near Potsdamer Platz. Part of the Tiergarten neighbourhood.
The skyline of Potsdamer Platz and Tiergarten seen from the Reichstag building.