Sony Center

The Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz is a steel-and-glass complex designed by Helmut Jahn and opened in 2000, built on land that had been one of Europe's largest inner-city wastelands following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The elliptical tent roof — said to evoke Mount Fuji — is the defining architectural gesture: by night it cycles through colors via LED lighting, transforming the courtyard into an open-air light installation. The complex houses the Deutsche Filmmuseum, a multiplex cinema, restaurants and bars within a fully enclosed public atrium. Urbanists frequently cite it as a rare successful example of privatized public space: the covered courtyard draws crowds regardless of Berlin's notoriously grey weather, functioning as a genuine civic gathering point rather than a mere shopping precinct.

Glass-and-steel plaza at Potsdamer Platz with Wagenfeld's umbrella roof, the Cinestar cinema and the Deutsche Kinemathek.