Walking the Unfinished City

Breathless and distressed, Homer wanders in search of the Potsdamer Platz he remembers—bustling with life. He mutters about busy streets, smoke-filled cafés, and crowded buses, yet all he encounters is an expanse of wasteland. Exhausted, he stops, puts down his cane, and sinks into an abandoned armchair. The quiet rustle of Berlin fills an otherwise empty scene. This haunting image from Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire endures as one of the city’s most emblematic landscapes.¹