Even before it is built, the new Berlin architecture is already making headlines. Philip Johnson - the venerable old man who has brought to life and reburied the great currents of the last 60 years, from the International Style to Deconstructivism and Postmodernism - expressed in his 1993 'Berlin Lecture' the fear that Berlin's current building policy would force all architects to build more or less the same. There are more and more voices speaking of banal formalism and insignificant 'normal' architecture, and they feel called upon to defend the freedom of artistic expression by all means.

The 'critical reconstruction', the official guide to Berlin's urban planning, has become the banner of architectural criticism. Building policy has dictated the rules of the game in order to subject building activity to a Berlin lyric by decree. Hans Stimmann, who was responsible for construction in the city, described the structural logic of the residential block and its height (22 meters) together with the alignment of its façade of openings as obligatory. Thus, not the modern building of the Siedlung, but the city of the 19th century became a binding scale on a largely destroyed old town...[+]