Between 1918 and the division of the city in 1961, the architecture and urban planning of Berlin experienced extreme changes in direction – primarily infl uenced by the political circumstances. In each phase, construction was dominated by the ideological direction of its time. This was true of the Modernism of the 1920’s, carried out by planners such as Bruno and Max Taut, Erich Mendelssohn and Walter Gropius, the conservative tilt and gigantean plans of 1933–45 or the new start after 1945. This also becomes clear from the different directions in which building developed in the divided city. While Hans Scharoun, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others continued to develop different forms of Modernism in the West, building in East Berlin took place primarily under the heading of “socialist redesign“ and a return to “national traditions“. In the third volume of his history of building in Berlin, Helmut Engel reconstructs the dramatic developments, always with the backdrop of the prevailing political and social conditions. Special edition of the series “Meisterwerke Berliner Baukunst”, Stiftung Denkmalschutz.