Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — Berlin. [ARTICLE]

Berlin.

Harper’s Magazine. Our first wanderings through the streets of Berlin did not fill our souls with that thrill of joy and that sympathetic trepidation of the whole being which we experienced when we first visited Venice, for instance, or Florence, or Constantinople; nor did they excite that wonderment and eager desire to appreciate which we had felt in the great American cities like Chicago. Berlin is absolutely wanting in charm, whether, of situation, of gennral aspect, or of historical souvenirs. It is a modern city, but its modern aspect has no marked character, and next to no originality. From the time of Frederick the Great, who was the founder of its prosperity, down to the pnesent period of active transformation, which dates from the Franco-German war, the architectural history of Berlin was almost entirely one of imitation and adaptation. The street architecture, until within the last ten years, has been absolutely null; mere rows of box like habitations, pierced with the necessary openings for light, ingress and egress, without any Regard for agreeableness of proportions, lines, and distribution of masses. The public buildings, of which several are grandiose, have been erected for the most part, under the influence of mistaken admiration for the models ©f ancient Greece.