Without its wall, Berlin remains an architectural free-for-all

Plans to erect a giant staircase to straddle the remains of the Berlin Wall have long been shelved but the city is still an architectural work in progress, 20 years after the hated barrier fell.

When the wall was finally pulled down, city planners, suddenly presented with acres of prime building land in the heart of a top European capital, were rubbing their hands with glee.

Planners thought "the building boom would soon put Berlin back on a par with Paris and London" as it was during the glory years of the 1920s, said local architect Christoph Wessling.

And the no-man's-land where the wall once stood became a playground for designers of all stripes, who set to work with enthusiasm.

Potsdamer Platz, for example, which at the start of the 20th century was said to be the busiest thoroughfare in the world and the site of the first traffic light, was a vacant lot overrun by wild grass and rabbits.

Under the direction of star architects including Italy's Renzo Piano, it transformed into a mini-Manhattan of imaginatively shaped glass skyscrapers overlooking the nearby Tiergarten park. As for the rabbits, they have scampered into the gardens of the "embassies" set up by Germany's regional governments near the site where Adolf Hitler's wartime bunker once stood.

Unique among major cities, Berlin had to cope both with its wartime devastation and then the huge scar of the wall carved through its heart.

To bring Berlin back together after it regained its status as German capital, city planners had to rebuild bridges, underground stations, roads - in short, nearly half the infrastructure of the city of 3.4 million people.

Some of the wackier plans, like US architect Robert Venturi's bid to build a huge staircase over the Brandenburg Gate, never saw the light of day as Berliners were desperate for a return to workaday city life.

"After the war and the Wall, Berliners were keen to return to normality," said Mr Wessling.

The problem for the 7.5 million tourists who visit Berlin each year is not difficulty circumventing the wall but finding where the barrier once stood.

"In some places, even Berliners no longer remember where it used to run," Mr Wessling noted.