Berlin and L.A. Form a Tale of Two Cityscapes in Transition

Once again, architecture is taking center stage! Or so it seems with the increasing number of cities that are hoping major new cultural landmarks will make them the next stop on the tourist train. This year, Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art hired Frank Gehry to design a major new addition. London is about to open its new Richard Rogers-designed Millennium Dome, with the queen in attendance, and the Basel-based Herzog & de Meuron is designing the new De Young Museum building in San Francisco.

But for now, Berlin is the center of the architectural universe. The move of Germany’s parliament from Bonn this fall may have symbolized a sea change in the balance of power in Europe, but it was the architects who were given the task of putting a face on the country’s emerging identity.

The results are mixed. Massive developments like the rebuilding of Potsdamer Platz contain a smattering of decent buildings, but they also include some embarrassing failures. If Renzo Piano’s DaimlerChrysler building is a refined model of the emerging global economy--with its elegant detailing and air of corporate luxury--Arata Isozaki’s Volksbank building is surprisingly uninspired. A few miles away, along Friedrichstrasse, one bland office building follows another, a testament to the kind of bottom-line development that dulls the spirit.

But Berlin can also boast a number of new landmarks that forcefully remind us of the impact architecture can have on a city’s identity. None can rival Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, a stunning work of architecture that will house exhibits on the history of Jewish culture in Berlin. Few buildings so fully evoke such a range of human emotions, covering both the human capacity for cruelty and the hope of spiritual renewal. Its jagged form--clad in a soft zinc and pierced by a series of enormous voids--is a map to a silent landscape of both the Holocaust’s legacy and the heroism of survival.

Other projects in Berlin deal with less chilling subjects, albeit with an equal degree of skill. The new shimmering glass dome of Norman Foster’s Reichstag renovation--with its public ramps spiraling above the building’s main assembly chamber--is a powerful symbol of German democracy. And although it is still under construction, Gehry’s DG Bank building may soon rank among his best works. The bank’s remarkable atrium, with layers of curvaceous glass trapped inside a rigid rectangular box, evokes the struggles of the creative imagination to free itself from bureaucratic restraints. Clearly, Berlin is a city that takes its architecture seriously.

By contrast, as Los Angeles continues to adjust to its growing stature as a cultural capital, it does so with a visible measure of unease. Construction on Rafael Moneo’s design for the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels is now well underway, and the building, with its stunning plaza and elegant gardens, promises to be a first-rate civic monument. And after a decade of false starts and budget overruns, Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall broke ground this December. The design’s exuberant forms, set in a lush garden along Grand Avenue, evoke the popular culture of Los Angeles at its best--a surreal mix of fantasy and urban toughness. Once it is completed, it should become a lasting emblem of civic pride.

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Los Angeles, in fact, seems to be immersed in a flurry of new construction. Major developments are underway all along Hollywood Boulevard. A new retail complex is rising alongside 3rd Street’s Farmer’s Market. The Lakers, Clippers and Kings have a flashy new downtown home in Staples Center. CityWalk--designed by the master of the entertainment complex, John Jerde--is undergoing a major expansion. But most of this development is uninspired. And hidden underneath the building boom is a city struggling with its civic identity. Police involved in illegal arrests. Schools built on toxic sites. A mismanaged Metro system. How can architecture claim a hold on the public imagination as the city copes with such fundamental challenges?

Yet chaos can also be an inspiration to the creative spirit, and a remarkably talented group of designers is fighting to assert its voices as the city works through its growing pains. Michael Maltzan, one of a seemingly endless list of Los Angeles’ emerging architectural stars, landed the commission to design Pasadena’s Kidspace Museum with a design whose sequence of fragmented forms suggests a trip into the imagination. Also in Pasadena, Gehry’s elegant renovation of the Norton Simon Museum adds an element of grace to the home of the city’s most important collection of art.

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Still other projects reflect new ways to envision the city’s future. Among the best is Thom Mayne’s design for the Long Beach International Elementary School, completed in January. With its layered, internal courtyard and rooftop playground wrapped behind a 24-foot-high corrugated metal screen, it is intended as a prototype for an increasingly dense urban landscape, an alternative to the typical one-story suburban school set in a field of blacktop.

In Silver Lake, Wes Jones’ design for a jazz musician’s house suggests an equally aggressive reworking of the suburban landscape. The house’s hyper-efficient, machine-like interior is enclosed in a concrete shell that can be reproduced indefinitely--a modern-day Levittown attuned to the specific needs of the Information Age.

These projects add much to the city’s cultural landscape. Equally important, they remind us of architecture’s role in shaping our best civic values. Architects may no longer be dreaming of Utopia, but they are still struggling to find the path to a more humane world.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles might want to look to Berlin for inspiration. Despite its share of failures, Berlin sought out the world’s most celebrated talents to shape what remains Europe’s largest building project. Gehry. Libeskind. Piano. Moneo. The list is endless. What’s more, the city embarked on a vibrant public debate about the role architecture should play in shaping its new identity. Museum directors, architects, bureaucrats and construction workers--all were energetically engaged in reshaping their city’s identity.

As a place for making architecture, Los Angeles has advantages that Berlin can only envy. The city is home to one of the world’s great architectural traditions. Its ephemeral landscape, sunny climate and openness toward the new have made it fertile ground for experimental design. But until now, those qualities have resulted in largely individual visions, primarily a remarkable collection of single-family homes. At this point the city needs to foster an atmosphere in which the creative imagination is allowed to soar on a more ambitious scale. As Los Angeles emerges as a truly world-class city, it has a responsibility to build a civic landscape that can equal those earlier domestic treasures.