Berlin unbound: A new look at the city that never stops changing

Berlin is the city that, probably more than any other, taught me about dealing with history. Not just while studying it at high school and university, but also as a tourist on my first visit.

During that visit, about a decade ago, the best way to describe my behaviour was "voracious". I knew so much about Berlin's history - the era of the Prussian kings, the decadence of the Weimar Republic, sinister darkness of the Nazi era, near destruction at the end of World War II, the division by the hated Wall through to reunification. And I was on a mission to take it all in. Which is what I did across one itinerary-packed week where I took one history tour after another - 10 in total. When I wasn't touring historic sites of the German capital, I was in and out of the museums.

I was fascinated, but all that looking back eventually came to a shuddering end while on a tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp on the city outskirts - a truly horrific place. It was as a tour guide explained how the guards used to shoot prisoners that something snapped, and I realised I'd had more than enough of the past. I walked out of the camp and to the nearest pub where I had a quiet drink on my own.

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The fact is, I had overdosed on history in a city that has no shortage of extraordinary tales from its past. And in my rush to explore Berlin's past, I had not considered for a moment the present-day city, let alone its future. So upon arrival for my recent second visit, I had a clear agenda - to put contemporary Berlin front and centre and explore why the ever-evolving metropolis has been described as, "a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being".

It was a decade overdue with a budget that blew out to triple the original cost, but the Brandenburg Airport which opened in late 2020 is Berlin's shiny new gateway. It's impressive, easy to use, has smooth access by rail from the city and is a big step up from the old Tegel Airport. Due to its many past dramas, however, the locals seem to loathe Brandenburg but any airport that offers a free fast pass through security is okay by me.

Far more popular and just as impressive is the Berlin Hauptbahnhof central railway station, which opened in 2006 and is like a giant glass and steel box with five levels of lines running through it. Located on the banks of the River Spree, it makes a bold architectural statement just across a bridge from the parliament buildings of the Reichstag.

Only blocks away from Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the outside of the Futurium Museum is all stark angles, and once inside, it delivers exactly what the name suggests - it's all about the future and how the ever-evolving advancements in technology are changing how we live.

This is one museum where you won't find any "do not touch" signs as visitors are encouraged across the three floors to reach out, feel and engage with what's in front of them. One exhibition space is devoted to questions for the future, another to rethinking how we live with nature, but my favourite is the Human exhibition, which looks at how our behaviour is changing, including exploring the question, "When will my smartphone fall in love with me?" It's a little confronting to wonder if we are almost there. That's the tone of discovery in a museum that initially sounds like a university science display but is all highly interactive with a strong sense of fun.

The newest addition to Museum Island, the home of the city's most famous galleries, is the Humboldt Forum, which opened in 2020 and has controversially been described as a "cross between a Disneyland castle and a chilling concrete block". The building, a striking mix of a reconstruction of the old Berlin Palace and a glimmering new high-tech structure, has a lot of roles to fulfil - examining Berlin's colonial past, as well as celebrating international art. There are also sections devoted to contemporary art, climate change, species extinction and fashion evolution. It's unusual and eclectic with a change of pace around every corner.

The old riverfront warehouse area still has its rough edges, but this is home to the alternative arts, culture and club scene with the Lighthouse of Digital Art emerging as one of the main attractions. The Lighthouse presents an immersive sensory journey through the solar system using the latest images from NASA and other space agencies.

It's an out-of-this-world experience that's far more of a spectacularly realistic mind trip than just another audio-visual display - thanks to its vivid visuals of what's already known about space, while teasing what's possibly still to be discovered.

Technically, the Tempelhofer Feld is not new as it was the old city airport but a decade ago, the disused airfield became Berlin's biggest park at 300 hectares. Instead of extensive landscaping to change it into a traditional park, locals demanded the airfield be left as it was. The runways are still in place and are today busy with cyclists and rollerbladers, with picnickers around its edges. And wildlife has returned in abundance. The best spot to get a clear perspective is from the newly opened THF Tower, which was once the air traffic control tower.

Today, Potsdamer Platz, with its grand and gleaming high-rise towers, is often referred to as Berlin's Times Square, the thoroughly modern face of this old city and a commercial crossroads where many roads and rail lines converge. Some of the best views of the Platz can be taken in from the observation deck or over brunch in the Panoramcafe, both in the Kollhoff-Tower.

When the TFE Hotel group decided to test a digital-based hotel model, they chose Berlin.

At the newly opened MM:NT Berlin Lab Hotel in the Hackescher Markt precinct, human interaction is virtually abandoned, replaced by everything being done with a swipe of a phone app. It's a bold, experimental new step, with the intention to change the rules of hotels as we know them. As a hotel manager admitted, "It was agreed to do the trial here as Berlin is a city that has always embraced change." Just be sure to keep your phone fully charged at all times.

The writer flew courtesy of Scoot Airlines.

Pictures: Getty Images; supplied