Urban Age conference taking place at the Deutsche Bank Building, Unter den Linden, Berlin

I was in Berlin in November 2006 to take part in an Urban Age Conference. While I was there, I visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. Designed by architect Peter Eisenman, it is a 19,000 square metre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern. Located one block south of the historic Brandenburg Gate and near the ruins of Hitler’s Bunker, it was inaugurated on May 10, 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II. I found the experience very moving, and wished I had been able to spend more time there. The Memorial provides a powerful example of using public space to address issues of history and memory.

A powerful, moving and deliberately disturbing experience

Human figures are dwarfed by some of the stelae, which resemble the filing cabinets of a sinister and murderous bureaucracy

Lost in a maze of cold stone

The Memorial forms an integral part of the city and can be approached from any angle at any time of the day or night