Potsdamer Platz

The sparkling new Potsdamer Platz, the hub of Berlin.

Having spent a fair amount of time in Las Vegas, I am intimately familiar with the conceit of what I call Cup-o’-Soup Architecture or COSA. In Vegas, the Eiffel Tower can be constructed in a matter of months. Add a little water, wait a few minutes, and where there was once a vacant lot is now the Doge’s Palace.

Potsdamer Platz, which was totally laid to waste during World War II and then sat as a desolate no-man’s land throughout the Cold War, now looks like a futuristic movie set for a sci-fi film, something titled “Europa: 2030.”

But here’s the thing: These are not streets of plywood facades like the movie sets at Universal Studios. Nor are they the 2/3 size trompe l’oeils of Vegas or Disneland. These are the real things. Full size. Street after street of noveau office buildings and glitzy apartments, restaurants and museums, all beautiful, all very modern, and all designed by a host of world-renowned architects like Renzo Piano, Arata Isozaki, Richard Rogers, and Jose Rafael Moneo.

And all of these stunning-looking building have sprung up in the last 20 years. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not on this scale. Not as a national statement. This is a brave new world. And it is endlessly fascinating.