letter from BERLIN.

Berlin was always good for experiments and extremes, and we are continually finding new ways to live them.

Mass events are extremely popular: the techno party Love Parade attracted a million young people in summer and an estimated two million people celebrated New Year's Eve along the so-called 'Millennium Mile' between the bluelit Victory Column and Berlin City Hall. On the other hand Berlin is also in quite a serious mood once again focusing on the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Second World War.

The American Jewish Committee recently issued a list of German companies and cities it says employed forced labour during the Nazi era. The German Government and industry have offered 10 billion marks to set up a new Holocaust restitution fund.

Gunter Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Gunter Blobel, of the Rockefeller University New York, the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Each will be donating the prize money of 1.8 million marks to monumental environmental projects, Grass to a foundation for Sinti and Roma, and Blobel for the reconstruction of Dresden's Synagogue and that city's Frauenkirche, bombed by the British.

After 11 years of intense debate, a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony is planned this January for Peter Eisenman's 'Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe' devoted to the six million killed by the Nazis. A foundation will be fully responsible for the final design, construction and maintenance independent of the government. The 2700 close-set concrete columns are to be built near the Brandenburg Gate, on the deathstrip that divided East and West in GDR times. Costs are estimated at some 15 million marks. Meanwhile, Daniel Libeskind wrote a letter of protest to the German parliament (Bundestag) attacking Eisenman for plagiarism. He feels the similarity to the garden of his recently finished Jewish Museum in Berlin with 49 leaning, 7m high concrete columns was more than merely coincidental.

Libeskind, a 53 year old American of Polish origin, was recently awarded the German Architecture Prize for the Museum, certainly the most unusual building of the New Berlin (AR April 1999). Federal President Johannes Rau described it as 'an answer in humane architecture against a state terrorism that tried to liquidate a race. It is a concrete warning that says "never again"'. Libeskind was happy that the design had survived six governments, changed its name five times, and now is under the rule of its fourth director.

Even though it still has no contents, it had some 100 000 visitors in 1999. Only now have officials realized that as a mass attraction the museum exhibits couldn't survive humidity caused by the visitors. The first exhibition is scheduled for October 2000, providing a larger air-conditioning plant can be installed in time.

The New Berlin has many attractions, but the German parliament building, the Reichstag (AR July 1999), is definitely its prime symbol as the nation's focal point. It is the number one tourist attraction with 4000 to 8000 visitors a day. According to Hans Estermann, head of the city's Economic Development Corporation, significantly more firms started to move there ever since the lights went on in Norman Foster's 23m high Reichstag dome. This was the final signal for the German media and business to accept Berlin as the nation's capital. The dome's glittering transparency is a clever symbol of public accessibility and the openness of the united Germany. The huge sun visor inside conjures up the Starship Enterprise. In fact, the pleasure of the architectural experience of the building itself is unfortunately a privilege reserved almost exclusively for the politicians who work here. But then the same applies to Frank Gehry's DG-Bank on Pariser Platz and most other office buildings.

Cranes have dominated Berlin's skyline in the past 10 years. Political emphasis lay on the redevelopment of the city's historic centre (Mitte). Potsdamer Platz, is now marked significantly with high rises by Helmut Jahn, Hans Kollhoff and Renzo Piano (AR January 1999). This is mirrored by a demand shift in office space from City West (25DM m2/month) to the central parts of City East and Potsdamer Platz (50 DM m2/month).

Even though 1.3 million square metres of office space are vacant today, estate agents are already speaking of a shortage of space in these prime areas. The district around Hackescher Markt (Mitte) near Alexander Platz is full of life, and vibrant day and night. It is rapidly becoming gentrified, attracting artists and cultural institutions. There are a number of places in the Mitte where you can admire both guests and the architecture.

At Oranienburger Strasse 42, Plajer & Franz designed the 808 Lounge in a trendy '60s style with a great bar, aquarium and warm chestnut cladding. The seemingly conventional architecture frames the colourful and electrifying crowd of the media, fashion and design worlds. It is also well worth while visiting Cafe Bravo just around the corner in the courtyard of August Strasse 69, between the avant-garde art galleries. Nalbach + Nalbach interpreted a sketch by the American artist Don Graham, whose work confronts the psychology of the recipient or consumer of art. The greeny silver mirrored glass and highly polished steel of the two cubic pavilions reflect and refract its surroundings, disturbing and confusing the visitor. This a genuine piece of architectural art, with no practical compromises like gutters impairing the impression. A shame only that the furniture doesn't meet the standard of either the art experience or the coffee.

Shopping is still best in the west. Times have been difficult, especially for foreign firms like Virgin, Fnac or Warner Brothers Studio Store. But even though both Superman and Batman have abandoned Berlin after a mere five year stay, the city's perspectives for shopping are bright. Some three billion marks are at present being invested in the City West for new retail, office and hotel facilities. And again, Helmut Jahn will be first to mark the new beginnings with his Kranzler Eck building.

Berlin is new and yet consistent. It continues to thrive on juxtapositions, the mixture of the shiny new gems and the bright life behind the drab facades of the old buildings. And as it is impossible to keep track of all important events and buildings, the future for the emerging new metropolis looks both bright and exciting.