Berlin Today: The Future of Metropolis

Stefano Corso

While solemnly pacing towards the future with heavy steps, Berlin had to free itself from a long, complex, and often uncomfortable past. At a crossroad between historical landscapes and the site of radical changes, the city manifests the ideological and social essence of European history, along with a socio-economic evolution that makes it a fascinating cultural landmark.
Stefano Corso’s research begins with the iconoclastic Metropolis by Fritz Lang, a cinematic prophecy of the city's future filmed in 1927, conjuring up the visionary atmospheres of today’s metropolis, once again reunited and yet constantly settling on new balances. With the play of shadow and light, the images allow the historical memory of symbolic places, the difficult passage of reconstruction both to shine through, and provide a vision of new potential landscapes. Places scarred by events are now at peace with their own history; architectural spaces are newly interpreted as an indicator of modernity, a modernity in which people move forward with difficulty, looking for a new dimension and yet deeply rooted within their own past.