A Modern Gaze

Take the Reichstag, the German parliament. Burnt by Hitler's minions to give the Nazis an excuse to take power in 1933, it lay empty and neglected for years—a symbol of the contempt both fascists and the communists had for democracy. Now it is once again the parliament, known today as the Bundestag, but its neo-classical facade is wrapped around a new interior designed by British architect Norman Foster. The wide strip of no-man's land along the fallen wall, where once border guards shot people who aspired to freedom, is full of daringly modern government buildings—the indubitably democratic infrastructure of the post-war German state. From the roof of the glass dome in parliament, you look east to the baleful Socialist Realist apartment blocks that line Karl Marx Alle and west to the giant shopping malls of Europa and Ka-Da-We. The River Spree winds through it all, choked now with tourist boats and capitalist pleasure craft.