Berlin/New York: Like & Unlike

With more than 600 illustrations augmenting 34 essays by art historians, critics and architects, this stimulating volume examines parallels and contrasts between New York and Berlin. Both cities are ``electropolises'' that flourished during the second industrial revolution between 1870 and 1920. In the suburbs of both Berlin and Manhattan, urban planners belonging to the Garden City movement sought ways to combat ugly aspects of capitalism. Essays draw parallels between New York's Central Park and Berlin's wooded Tiergarten, and between the cities' respective amusement industries, as exemplified by Brooklyn's Coney Island and Berlin's enormous, domed Haus Vaterland. Other essays chart analogous developments in art from the emergence of modernism to postwar experiments in painting and sculpture. Yet fundamental differences also emerge, such as NYC's anarchic, individualistic growth versus Berlin's greater emphasis on economic democracy and on integrating technology and culture. (Mar.)