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The Week in Germany: Culture

March 16, 2007

Getting a Bird's Eye View: Berlin Goes 3-D on Google Earth

Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt - go to the Der Spiegel article for more images.
Photo: GoogleEarth / 3Dgeo / SPIEGEL ONLINE

"Poor, but Sexy" Berlin is Germany's biggest city, the seat of the country's federal government, and has long been a magnet for performers, artists and students from across the globe.

Berlin is home to Germany's most powerful woman - Chancellor Angela Merkel - and myriad other politicians. Berlin also has a popular governing mayor affectionately known as "Wowi" (Klaus Wowereit) and a cute baby polar bear - reportedly adored by "Wowi" - named Knut.

In architectural terms, the old-new German capital is an intriguing mix of sweeping classical grandeur, stark pre-fab apartment blocks, hip underground hangouts and striking new corporate-sponsered statements. The city-state's structures range from the historic Reichstag parliament building to the lovingly restored gems of its magical museum island to the modern masterpieces that have risen since the 1990s from the former no-man's-land where the ominous Wall once stood at the heart of a divided city.

So it would seem it was high time for an online provider of cool 3-D cityscapes such as Google Earth to start mapping Berlin, which it has. The results have just gone live, as recently reported by Spiegel Online International.

Although it is still a work in progress, with the tantalizing commercial option of businesses eventually becoming "clickable" from the buildings they are actually located in within the maps, five especially prominent buildings can now be entered virtually and viewed from the inside: the Reichstag, the new central train station, the DZ Bank on Pariser Platz, the Sony Center and the Olympic Stadium.

As reported by TWIG in January, Hamburg became the first German city available in 3-D on Google Earth.

In order to see Berlin 3D, you need to have the newest version of Google Earth and must access it through this link.

Links:

The full Der Spiegel story (including 16-image photo gallery)

Germany's Gate to the World: Designs Chosen for the Heart of Hamburg's Hafencity (TWIG, Jan. 19, 2007)

Bode Museum Reopens After Six-Year, 160 Million Euro Makeover
(TWIG, Oct. 20, 2006)

Berlin: Still Sexy, Still Poor (TWIG, Oct. 20, 2006)

Back Where it Belongs: Topping-Off Ceremony for New U.S. Embassy Building in Berlin (TWIG, Oct. 13, 2006)

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