Hansaviertel

This guide to the Hansaviertel in Berlin starts from the rubble of 1945, when West Berlin decided to answer East Berlin's grand Stalinallee with an architecture exhibition of its own. You'll hear how more than fifty architects from over a dozen countries, including former wartime enemies, were invited in 1957 to each design a building on these grounds, and how names like Gropius, Aalto and Niemeyer ended up stamped on the houses around you. It follows the district's opening day, when visitors streamed in from both sides of the divided city to see what freedom was supposed to look like.