Hans Kollhoff, perspective of the proposal for the second phase of the Potsdamer Platz competition

Towards the end of the 19th century, the architectural world witnessed a parade in which virtually every known style followed one another at an ever-increasing speed. It was a festival of architectural eclecticism in which elements from all eras were poured into layers and picturesque collages. Only when this orgy of unbridled historicism had reached its zenith did a countermovement begin to emerge. Isolated at first, it moved radically away from the prevailing stylistic hodgepodge, propagating simplicity as an economic, ethical and aesthetic ideal, and heralding the emergence of the Modern Movement, whose social and artistic triumph was to culminate in the Neue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s.

Today, as we approach not only the turn of the century, but also of the millennium, something very similar seems to be happening. Once again we find a hodgepodge of different styles and fashions jostling for attention. Once again we are close to a point where there is no choice but to let go of the ballast accumulated over a hundred years. And even now simplicity seems to offer a solution, even if it is a simplicity quite different from the one that prevailed at the beginning of this century...[+]