Published and with a foreword by Florian Illies. It is perhaps the most famous sentence ever written about the German capital. Berlin, as stated in the last lines of Karl Scheffler's classic published in 1910, is doomed to "always become and never be." Unlike London or Paris, the metropolis on the Spree lacks an organic principle of development. It is nothing more than a colonial city, its sole purpose the conquest of the East, its population a haphazard collection of materialistically oriented misfits. No art or culture that could compete with those of the world cities. Nowhere to be found but provincialism and culinary failures. Berlin: "City of canned goods, of canned vegetables, and of universal sauce."

What Scheffler could not foresee: his dictum would prove to be prophetic. From the Golden Twenties through the anarchic nineties to its heyday as the world capital of hipsterism at the beginning of the new millennium – hardly any other author has so aptly described the fascinating and unique character of Berlin. The former divided city has become a symbol of a new urbanity, blessed with the privilege of never having to be, but always allowed to become.