In this research we analyze the urban planning of the city of Berlin from the period of the reunification until now, regarding the political system and its practices upon the city. We analyze the way in which the science of urban planning, as the basic expression of spatial process in cities and architecture as a tool of the composition of the image of the cities, gets involved for the attainment of the goals of the political system.
The reunification triggered the discussion for the situation and the role of Berlin in the global economy. The dominant class of Berlin, having in mind its political and economic interest, developed strategies for the commercialization of the site in order for it to emerge as a Global City which would be a welfare model, an art regeneration center and a symbol of capitalist production.
Initially a comprehensive report on the global political-economic situation of the period is made. On the ground of Berlin traces were reflected, not only of a different urban reality but of a radical economic and social policy change. The world-class discussion on the crisis of Fordist production model and the modern movement influenced drastically the reconstruction of the capital of Berlin. Then we investigate the methods and the tools of critical reconstruction, the theory on which the whole redevelopment of Berlin was based, the involvement of private capital in the shaping of urban fabric and the phenomenon of gentrification which set and imposed a very specific spatial situation in the city center. Finally, we transfer, through a series of interviews, the experience of the embodiment of the global historical mutation of power politics, the narrow territorial limits of the new capital and the way the new conditions of life are shaped.
Berlin today continues to be divided in an intangible way.It regenerates its territory by destroying and creating. It reunites by producing demarcations and it enforces itself by sharpening its social contradictions.