More Potsdamer Platz

Potsdamer Platz, as opposed to other Berlin squares, lacked a regular shape. In fact, it had grown in a somewhat anarchic way, the reason being aht it was not part of Berlin proper until 1920. I hope the pictures I post here will help to understand better this place, a very important one in the Berlin of the 1920s and 1930s. They were taken by different photographs and from different angles. I have added explanatory labels for buildings and streets.

 

By Willy Römer, 1938

1920

 

By Waldemar Titzenthaler, 1932

Old hotel Bellevue, with its konditorei, went bankrupt and the lot was used to build the modernistic building known as Columbushaus in 1932 (picture above). It offered a blatant contrast with the style of its neighbouring buildings, but then this was Potsdamer Platz, were contrasts and paradoxes were the rule.

By Max Missmann, 1925

By Willy Römer