Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism: Metropolis Berlin : 1880-1940 (Series #46) (Edition 1) (Hardcover)

Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 reconstitutes the built environment of Berlin during the period of its classical modernity using over two hundred contemporary texts virtually all of which are published in English translation for the first time. They are from the pens of those who created Berlin as one of the world s great cities and those who observed this process: architects city planners sociologists political theorists historians cultural critics novelists essayists and journalists. Divided into nineteen sections each prefaced by an introductory essay the account unfolds chronologically with the particular structural concerns of the moment addressed in sequence--be they department stores in 1900 housing in the 1920s or parade grounds in 1940. Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 not only details the construction of Berlin but explores homes and workplaces public spaces circulation commerce and leisure in the German metropolis as seen through the eyes of all social classes from the humblest inhabitants of the city slums to the great visionaries of the modern city and the demented dictator resolved to remodel Berlin as Germania.