the question is, why in a city that:
1. is a major capital city;
2. has more then 3 millions inhabitants;
3. has no historic high landmarks (e.g. the Eiffel tower) or a solid/dense historic center;
4. has no topographic problems or earthquake risks;
5. has a quite good public transportation system and infrastructure;
there are almost no skyscrapers?
Berlin has all (well, almost...we'll talk about it later) the parameters to allow high-rise buildings within the city, but it still has one of the most boring skylines.
by the end of the II world war, about 60% of the city was destroyed and it lost most of the historic urban tissue. during the division of Berlin between east and west, there was a different urban development in each part of the city. in east Berlin the planners were implementing the soviet urban development scheme, which included modular social housing (nice words to describe plattenbau ) and monumental roads that were way too wide for the traffic at that time. in west Berlin on the other hand, the urban development was less radical. most on the old urban structure was kept, but it was filled with concrete constructions which are typical to the west german post war development. and let's not forget the big spaces along the division wall that were just left empty.
and all this short introduction why? to explain why Berlin is actually the right city for high-rise buildings. one of the strong arguments against skyscrapers in the city centers (or within an existing urban tissue), is the traffic problems that they create due to the high number of users. the urban design heritage, especially in east Berlin, left numerous wide boulevards and Allees that could cope easily with that task, not mentioning the well organized public transportation system and the wide use of bicycles nowadays.
another advantage of Berlin, is the relatively big terrain availability within the city. either free lots (which are running out rapidly) or potentially reuse of land, as part of urban renewal program by replacing the low quality constructions that were built during the post war period.
the high-rise buildings are a challenge (good ones, not the cheap photoshop collage i did...), they are a 'must' considering the reduction of the open spaces, people love them (why? that's for another post...) so why not? the answer is demand! the population growth of the city doesn't create a housing crisis, the real-estate values are still not high enough to attract that kind of investment, there is no big demand for offices or for corporate headquarters (Berlin is not a business capital) and there will be always someone who will complain saying that Berlin is not like this or like that and that the global run-out of open spaces doesn't really bother him (even if he recycles the trash and eats bio...)
one of the renderings for the new development in Alexanderplatz, proposed by the architect Till Sattler. for other images visit this link.
