The Alleynian 705 2017

EXPEDITIONS

CITY OF SHARDS P erhaps the most arresting thing about Berlin is just how much this city has been shaped – scarred, even – by the past; the metropolis itself is more of a memorial than any of its individual museums. You can pass down a railway line, between long, grey, Soviet-era tenements, cross an elegant 19th-century bridge and wind into a train station positively futuristic in comparison to our Victorian piles – and still find yourself hopping onto a carriage that wouldn’t look out of touch in a John Le Carré thriller. When we think of Berlin, we see in the mind’s eye snapshots of the cityscape: the Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden, both stately symbols of the Prussian city in its golden, Wilhelmine age; Checkpoint Charlie and the Wall – sites of Cold War confrontations and the rebuilt Reichstag, its cavernous, glass dome symbolising the post-reunification spirit of hope that carries the city forward. What we miss, when we ‘see’ the city in these striking ‘fragments’ is a sense of its unity. Most great cities have some sort of overall historical arc: Vienna is the city of Emperors; Paris, of Kings and Revolutionaries; London, of Business and Parliament. Berlin is an enigma. Shards of the past collide to form a mosaic of three different cities – imperial, communist, and cosmopolitan. The short mile walk with Mr Smith, our expert, relentless tour guide, from the Brandenburg Gate to the Alexanderplatz brings this multi-layered world into view. Passing between bright buildings, restored in the wake of war (including the elite Hotel Aldon, temporary home of PG Wodehouse in 1941),

John Concagh (Year 12), reflecting on the recent Upper School history trip to Berlin, finds the city a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – and maybe its key

Photographs by Zak Asgard (Year 12)

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