Between 1871 and 1919, the population of Berlin quadrupled and the city became the political center of Germany, as well as the turbulent crossroads of the modern age. This was reflected in the work of artists, directors, writers and critics of the time. As an imperial capital, Berlin was the site of violent political revolution and radical aesthetic innovation. After the German defeat in World War I, artists employed collage to challenge traditional concepts of art. Berlin Dadaists reflected upon the horrors of war and the terrors of revolution and civil war. Between 1924 and 1929, jazz, posters, magazines, advertisements and cinema played a central role in the development of Berlin's urban experience as the spirit of modernity took hold. The concept of the Neue Frau -the modern, emancipated woman-helped move the city in a new direction. Finally, Berlin became a stage for political confrontation between the left and the right and was deeply affected by the economic crisis and mass unemployment at the end of the 1920s. This book explores in numerous essays and illustrations the artistic, cultural and social upheavals in Berlin between 1918 and 1933 and places them in a broader historical framework.

“Metropolis Berlin evokes a kaleidoscopic panorama of impressions, opinions, and utopian hopes that constituted Berlin from the end of Imperial Germany to the rise of National Socialism. Iain Boyd Whyte and the late David Frisby invite the reader to be a flâneur in a truly great city, to marvel at the vitality of its urban spaces, and to listen to the cacophony of its voices and sounds. This extraordinary anthology of hundreds of documents tells the story of metropolitan Berlin by letting its inhabitants, visitors, and critics speak. A must have for every personal bookshelf and library.”—Volker M. Welter, Professor for Architectural History, University of California at Santa Barbara "Metropolis Berlinis not merely a magnificent compendium of sources, but is also an exciting work of scholarship in its own right. It presents this global city, in all its architectural, urbanistic, and discursive richness and complexity, like no other volume before it."—Frederic J. Schwartz, author of Blind Spots: Critical Theory and the History of Art in Twentieth-Century Germany.

Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 reconstitutes the built environment of Berlin during the period of its classical modernity using over two hundred contemporary texts, virtually all of which are published in English translation for the first time. They are from the pens of those who created Berlin as one of the world’s great cities and those who observed this process: architects, city planners, sociologists, political theorists, historians, cultural critics, novelists, essayists, and journalists. Divided into nineteen sections, each prefaced by an introductory essay, the account unfolds chronologically, with the particular structural concerns of the moment addressed in sequence—be they department stores in 1900, housing in the 1920s, or parade grounds in 1940. Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 not only details the construction of Berlin, but explores homes and workplaces, public spaces, circulation, commerce, and leisure in the German metropolis as seen through the eyes of all social classes, from the humblest inhabitants of the city slums, to the great visionaries of the modern city, and the demented dictator resolved to remodel Berlin as Germania.

Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918 vividly documents the diverse ways that Jewish artists, intellectuals, and cultural impresarios participated in this burst of creativity and promoted the emergence of modernism in Berlin and on the international scene."--BOOK JACKET.

AT HAUSVOGTEIPLATZ Something unique emerged in the heart of Berlin in the nineteenth century: a creative centre for fashion and ready-made clothing. The hundreds of clothing companies that were established here manufactured modern clothing and developed new designs that were sold throughout Germany and the world. This industry reached the height of its success in the 1920s. Freed from their corsets, sophisticated women of the time dressed in the "Berlin chic" sold by Valentin Manheimer, Herrmann Gerson, or the Wertheim department stores. After 1933, however, most Jewish clothing industrialists were confronted with hatred and violence. Many of their companies were "Aryanized" while they themselves were robbed, displaced, and murdered. Under new Aryan management, these companies created conservative clothing that represented an entirely different image of women.

"Despina Stratigakos is assistant professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York."--BOOK JACKET.