«   

   »   

Long before the first fireworks bringing in the New Millenium sounded, however, plans had already been made to ensure that the body politic that emerged out of the rubble of 1989 could never fill the gap created by the collapse of Communism. As Howard Caygill's "The Futures of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz" suggests (see A. Scott, The Limits of Globalisation, 1997, pp 25-54), the reconstruction of Berlin had already been "secretly" decided by smartly dressed figures wearing dark suits while sitting in the plush leather lounges of the designer offices lining the halls of power. Central to such plans was the re-occupation of Potsdamerplatz, that no-man’s land that was once a thriving heart of commerce and industry.