"A superb guide to this process of urban self-definition, both past and present.”

Wall Street Journal

“With erudition, insight, and restraint, Brian Ladd carries off the dangerous task of analyzing architecture and urbanism in Berlin in terms of its horrific political past. He convincingly argues that architecture embodies ideological meaning more powerfully than other artifacts of a society.”

New York Times Book Review

“[Ladd’s] well-written and well-illustrated book amounts to a brief history of the city as well as a guide to its landscape.”

Anthony Grafton | New York Review of Books

“Ladd examines the conflicts radiating from [Berlin’s] remarkable fusion of architecture, history and national identity.”

History Today

“Ladd’s balanced, sensitive chronicle of the Berlin’s traumatized topography brings the past into focus.”

Harvard Design Magazine

“Ladd’s book is absorbing. More than a portrait of a fraught city, it is a reminder that not just ‘good design’ is at stake in the built world and its traces."

Architects' Journal