For decades, one large lot that might otherwise have been prime territory for development in Berlin has lain vacant. During the Nazi era, the “Prinz Albrecht Terrain” was the headquarters of the Gestapo.

A design has finally been chosen for a new memorial (due to open in 3 years) at what has become known as the Topography of Terror. Its subject is the Nazis themselves and their machinery of espionage, torture and liquidation.

“It is where we will deal with the question of how in 150 days, from January to June 1933, a democracy was turned into a totalitarian dictatorship that was able in that short time to subordinate all of the institutions of the state to its purpose,” said Andreas Nachama, director of the Topography of Terror Foundation.

It has always been a delicate task for the Germans to construct places dedicated to portraying the Nazis, in part because of the fear that they could turn into pilgrimage sites for neo-Nazis. The places closely identified with Hitler, his chancellery on Wilhelmstrasse and the bunker where he committed suicide, are destroyed and unmarked.

Ursula Wilms’s design is a rectangular hall sheathed inside a metallic mesh, which lets people look out at other parts of the exhibit but does not let people outside see in.

The Gestapo site is really the exhibit, Wilms explained. The building merely provides an entry to it. There are also exhibit spaces underground, where some of the original Gestapo headquarters is still intact.

I read about Topographof Terror in archinect (The NYT) and as i was in the neighbourhood, i visited the site and took a few pictures.