Jobs, work and careers are of course very common topics in IELTS. If one of these topics comes up in your Speaking Exam, the examiner may ask you some questions about choosing a career or choosing a university course. Choosing a career can also be a writing topic. You may get an essay question about it, or there may be a diagram in Writing Part 1 about career choices.
Typical Speaking Questions
Let's look at some speaking questions about choosing a career:
What factors do people need to consider when choosing a career?
Do you think there's any difference between males and females when it comes to choosing a future career?
Do you think parents should let their children make their own choices about a future career or should the parents make this choice?
Do you think it's useful for schools to give careers advice to students? Why (not)?
Are there any other ways in which young people can get some guidance on what career to choose?
(Note: these questions are from the ielts-yasi.englishlabwebsite, which is a good place to find practice questions on many topics.)
Vocabulary
Below is a text about career choices. There is some useful vocabulary here that may help you answer questions like the ones above. Read the text and do the exercises.
SECTION ONE
Choosing The Right Career For You
In the later years of high school, parents and teachers start asking questions like "What are you going to do when you leave school?" and "What careers are you interested in?" For some high school students, these are easy questions - they've always known what they wanted to do, and they have no doubts. But for most, choosing the right career seems impossible at that point in their lives.
Of course, there's really no specific time at which you must decide what career to pursue. These days, quite a few people hold down a job throughout their 20s just to pay their rent and living expenses, but only find their real vocation later. A lot of them feel that having some first-hand experience of working life will ultimately help them make a better career decision. Keeping that in mind, there's no need to feel pressured if you're not sure what career would suit you. You should definitely think about it, though, because it's probably one of the most important choices you will ever make.
You can start choosing a career while you’re at high school, at university or even when you graduate. You can even defer your decision to settle on a particular line of work until after you have already started working. What is most important is the process you use to settle on a particular line of work. How Do You Go About It?
EXERCISE ONE
Complete the following collocations from the text: a. to pursue a
b. to defer a
c. to settle something
d. a line of What do these collocations mean? Post your answers in the comments box below. EXERCISE TWO
A. Choose words from the list to complete the text:
(Note: there's one word you don't need.)
First, you need to establish your likes. What do you enjoy doing? Is there something that you wouldn’t mind doing every day even if you weren’t getting paid for it? If there is, think about how you can do that for a . It must be said, though, that not everything you have a . for can be translated into a viable . of income. Still, sometimes it’s worth aiming for ideals.
Next, your strengths. What are you good at? Note that this isn’t the same as what you are trained in. It might be something you can do even without going through extensive professional . One effective way to identify your strengths is to think about the compliments you get from other people, and decide whether there’s any particular skill that these compliments. Then try to think of a career in which that strength could be .
B. Explain these phrases:
Writing
Here's one possible essay question on the topic of choosing a career:
After leaving school or university, young people should choose a job or career that they love, rather than one that pays the best salary. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
On the 'IELTS SImon' website, there's a page which offers some ideas to help you answer this question. Follow this link to visit the page. Also notice that the topic here is very closely related to the topic of Job Satisfaction. You can do some exercises about job satisfaction vocabulary on this page.
ANSWERS TO VOCABULARY QUESTIONS 1a. to pursue a career b. to defer a decision c. to settle on something d. a line of work 2a. - you can do that for a living. - everything you have a passion for - a viable source of income - assess your strengths - extensive professional training - a particular skill that inspires these compliments - that skill could be applied.
2b. to broaden something = to make it wider (broad is the opposite of narrow.)
Here are some questions you might get related to the topic of job satisfaction:
- What kind of job would you like to do? Why?
- How important is it to love your job? Why?
- What makes some people feel bored with their jobs?
- What's more important to you: doing a job which you find
interesting, or having good colleagues at work?
- Would you recommend your job to other people?
Why [not]?
- Is a good salary the most important form of motivation at
work, or are other things as important?
Writing: Typical Questions
Job satisfaction was the essay topic in a recent IELTS exam (January 2013). This makes it less likely to be your essay topic, but it's certainly possible.
1. Here's the January 2013 question:
Nowadays people think that job satisfaction is one of the
most important things in life, and that without a fulfilling
career life is meaningless. To what extent do you agree or
disagree?
2. A question like the one below also appeared in an exam not
long ago. Although it's quite different, to answer this question
fully you would need to include some discussion about how
people get satisfaction from working.
If people could choose between working for the rest of their
lives and living without work, most would choose not to
work. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
3. Lastly, you could get a question about the importance of earning
a good salary. There are different ways that examiners can ask
this question, but here's one example:
Of all the factors which motivate people in the workplace
and bring them job satisfaction, money is the most
important. To what extent do you agree or disagree with
this statement?
Here you need to compare the satisfaction you get from earning
a good salary to other things that can make a job satisfying.
Sources of job satisfaction might include:
- doing work which you like/love
- having good colleagues who you enjoy working with
- benefits that are important to you, such as flexible hours
or a good health plan
- taking responsibility and initiative (if you like doing that)
- contributing to a team
- being noticed for your achievements
... and so on.
You can prepare for this topic by choosing one question above (writing or speaking), and writing your answer in the comments box. If you choose a writing question, please don't write a whole essay - just tell me your ideas. Happy writing )))
Think about our solar system for a moment. The first planet, Mercury, is tiny and boiling hot. It's impossible to live there, but if you could live there, what would you do? There are no trees, no mountains, no forests, no animals, no cinemas, no gyms and no chocolate. Venus is the same, except that it's cloudy all the time and the air is full of poisonous chemicals that would kill you in a few minutes. Mars has a few mountains and some nice coloured dirt, but it's freezing cold and nothing ever happens there.
All the other planets are either made of gas, or made of ice.
Venus: You'll be dead in a minute.
The point is, when you consider how little there is on the other planets, it's quite incredible how much stuff there is on ours. Earth has everything from pyramids to mangoes, from cats to curries, from the Bahamas to the Himalayas. We have Roger Federer, we have novels and bees, we have air traffic control, cappuccinos, smart phones, Norway, physics departments, red wine and roses ... and of course, I could go on.
Probably the most amazing thing we have, though, is life. Life is everywhere, from the bottom of the oceans to the tops of mountains, and from the heart of the Brazilian rainforest to the table in your kitchen. This is not normal for a planet. In fact, it's extremely unusual.
So what is this thing called "life", and how does it relate to us at this point in our history? What helps life to spread, and what puts it in danger? Why are there so many different kinds of it? And as humans, what is our relationship to other forms of life?
These are all deep questions, but don't worry - in the IELTS exam, the examiner won't suddenly say "What is life, and where did it come from?". However, there are often reading texts about related topics. You may also get speaking questions about animals, natural places, or humans' effect on nature and how we can protect it.
So let's have a look at some videos and other resources that cover this topic.
We'll start with a video from Kew Gardens, a famous Botanical Garden in the UK. Before you do any of the exercises below, just watch the video, enjoy the pictures, and try to understand the main ideas.
Kew Gardens Exercises
1: Useful Verbs
Read these excerpts from the first section of the video. From memory, choose the right word for each space. Then listen and check.
a) All of us really need plants. If you just what you had for breakfast this morning, on medicines you may have taken, all of these things are by plants. They clean soil, clean air, and a healthy existence for people.
b) Some people that many thousands of plants are endangered. They're threatened, and who knows what sort of help they could give to people in the future if we them.
Now use these verbs in other sentences.
c) Governments have a responsibility to people who can't work because they are ill.
d) Nowadays people don't often the real meanings of national and religious holidays. They just eat and drink a lot on those days!
e) Some people simply don't believe that solar energy can enough electricity for the needs of modern societies.
f) Scientists that, in the next 50 years, global average temperatures may increase by up to six degrees celsius.
g) Some medical services are free by the government, but you have to pay for others.
2: Helping Plants in Danger
Match these sentences from the video to their meaning.
a) "There is an urgency associated with plants."
b) Some people estimate that many thousands of plants are endangered.
They're threatened.
c) Even on the continents, on the mainland, plants are going extinct.
d) We now have enough plants to work with our partners on Rodriguez
Island, and get this plant back into the wild.
e) We've developed methods for its propagation.
(NOTE: "propagate" = make more of something)
f) We'd almost given up hope.
g) Half are kept in the country of origin. We seal the other half in glass jars.
h) By giving a small donation.
i) By clubbing together to save an entire species.
j) We really can bring plants back from the brink.
The people who write IELTS questions have a few 'obsessions'. There are some ideas which they return to again and again. For example, they love to ask if different things can be helpful for international relations. So you can get questions like - Can big sporting events improve international relations? - With so many people travelling abroad nowadays, does this have an effect on international relations? - Can understanding our history help us to improve international relations today? If you study international relations at university, this is great news for you! If you don't, then it's a good idea to think about this when you approach different 'predictable IELTS topics'. Another thing examiners often ask about is the responsibilities of governments and individuals, and sometimes big companies. This topic may appear in both the Speaking Module and the Writing Module. Here are some examples of questions you might see: 1. Most people believe that individuals are powerless to save the environment, but governments and large companies can make a difference. To what extent to do you agree? 2. Does the government have a role to play in people's eating habits? 3. Solving environmental problems should be the responsibility of one international organisation, not of national governments and individuals. To what extent do you agree with this statement? 4. Some people believe that governments should take full financial responsibility for health care and education, while others disagree. Discuss both views, and give your own opinion. 5. Some say it is the government's duty to take care of the disadvantaged members of society, while others disagree. Discuss both views, and give your own opinion. 6. Do governments have a responsibility to encourage people to use public transport more often and rely on their cars less? You can practise by writing your answer to one or more of these questions in the comments box below.
If you're not an architect, talking about buildings may seem boring. But consider this: we live in buildings, we work in them, learn in them, shop in them, eat and drink in them, and raise our families in them. They are around us almost everywhere we go, and when we think about the places we love (like our own city, for example), some of the images we see in our minds are images of buildings.
If you think about it like this, it's not surprising that buildings are a common topic in IELTS. They are a big part of our everyday lives, and so this topic can appear in all four modules.
On this page, I want to look at issues related to buildings, and useful vocabulary for discussing them, in detail. Hope you enjoy the page )))
Example Writing Question
There are many kinds of questions you can get about buildings, but a common type asks you to compare old buildings to new ones. This essay question, for example, comes from the Essay Forum website, which has some very useful IELTS materials:
Governments spend an enormous amount of money on renovations of old buildings in large cities. Some believe that this money is better be spent on building new houses and road development. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
GETTING IDEAS AND VOCABULARY As with a lot of essay questions, the big challenges in answering are "How can I think of ideas quickly?" and "What vocabulary do I need for the essay?"
To help us answer this and other questions, we're going to read some excerpts from an article about reconstruction in Germany. First, though, to help us understand this article, we need to look at a bit of the historical context.
Germany: destruction and re-construction
The key historical fact here is this: Germany, as we know, lost World War II, and in the later part of the war many of its cities were destroyed. Therefore the Germans had to re-construct.
To get some idea of the task of reconstruction, you can see some pictures of Berlin after World War II here. (The video has a happy ending :-)
Many German cities are very old places with long histories, and some of them were (and are) extremely beautiful. For this reason, Germans had two options: they could restore their cities, or they could modernise. This decision was not made at a national level - every local government had to decide what to do in their area.
VOCABULARY (1) One more thing before we start reading: there are a few words in the text above that you should remember. They are:
an option: a possible choice. It's like a "variant", but we don't use
"variant" for this in English.
modernise (vb) / modernisation (n.): this is about a city, an area,
or a system ("They modernised the airport security system; now it's
completely electronic.")
renovation/renovation: this is about a house or another building.
("I'm renovating my flat now. Soon I'll have a completely new
kitchen and bathroom.") restore (vb) / restoration (n.):when you restore something, you
return it to its original form.
("Artists restored Leonardo's Mona Lisa; it had lost all its colour.")
reconstruct (vb) / reconstruction (n.):to re-construct something
= to build it again. You usually do this with buildings or cities that
have been destroyed. You can choose to restore or modernise -
both are kinds of reconstruction.
Ok ... let's get started!
Out of the Ashes: A New Look at Germany's Postwar Reconstruction
By Romain Leick, Matthias Schreiber and Hans-Ulrich Stoldt
Germany's rebirth following the annihilation of World War II is nothing short of a miracle. But the country's reconstruction was not without controversy and it resulted in cities filled with modernist buildings which have not aged well. Now, a new wave of construction is underway coupled with a new desire to rebuild the old.
This introduction says a number of interesting things.
First, it says that Germany was annihilated ( = completely destroyed) in World War II, and after that there was a "rebirth".
Notice the prefix "re-" here, like in the words "renovate" ( = to make something new again) and "reconstruct" ( = to construct something again). So we can say that Germany was born again after the war.
Although it was very successful, there was a "controversy" about the reconstruction.
A controversy is a public debate, when people have very strong opinions about something, and they argue about it. If this word is new to you, add it to your vocabulary book now - it's a veryimportant word to know for IELTS. (The adjective is "controversial".)
The paragraph also explains why these buildings were so controversial: it was because they were all modern. At least, they were modern at the time when they were built. The authors say that many of them "didn't age well", which means that 20 years later, they didn't look exciting and modern anymore - they just looked ugly.
RE-READING TIME!
With these ideas in mind, read the paragraph again to check your understanding.
DISCUSSION (1):
What has been the result of this negative reaction to the ugly modern buildings in Germany? Post your answer in the comment box below.
Part 2 of the text:
So we know that the Germans had to make a decision. And they had to make it quickly, because after the war, there were millions of people without a place to live. The article explains the options in more detail:
But how to quickly build the urgently needed housing? Should destroyed houses and prestigious buildings be rebuilt to look just like they were and in the same location? Or, since everything was destroyed anyway, should the cities take advantage of the opportunity to make a fresh start -- by, for example, broadening the narrow, winding alleys of historical city centers to make them more car-friendly or by providing inhabitants with modern housing surrounded by greenery?
VOCABULARY (2):
Choose the best definition for each word:
a. "inhabitants" are
i. people who have the same habits
ii. people who live in a specific place (the residents)
iii. people who go to work on foot
b. "urgent" means
i. it's important and we need it very soon
ii. it's not so important, and we can wait for it
iii. it's terrible, and we don't want it
c. "narrow winding alleys" are
i. large streets built specially for large trucks
ii. large streets which are very windy, so they're dangerous for trucks
iii. small streets which are not wide and not straight
d. "to broaden" means
i. to make something more modern
ii. to make something look more European
iii. to make something wider
e. "greenery" is
i. plants and trees
ii. farms and fields
iii. something you get with a salad
f. Also notice here the word "car-friendly", which means "good for people with cars." A car-friendly city has good roads, clear signs, not many traffic jams, easy parking and so on.
We can use "-friendly" with a lot of different words. If we're talking about cities, what do you think these cities would be like, and what features would they have:
i. a pedestrian-friendly city
ii. a tourist-friendly city
iii. an environmentally-friendly city?
The answers are at the bottom of the page.
DISCUSSION (2):
a. According to the authors, what would be the advantages of modernising?
b. Do you think your own city could benefit from a 'fresh start'?
What would the benefits be? c. If your government decided to start a huge project of modernisation in
your city, would you prefer them to make it more car-friendly than it is
now, or more pedestrian-friendly? Why?
Part 3 of the text:
Many people in Germany were against the idea of restoring things to look like they had before the war. They believed that "the country needed a radical break from the past, both morally and politically." As a result,
... new roads, schools, hospitals and housing developments sprouted up all over West Germany. By the 1960s, an average of 570,000 apartments were being built annually. In communist East Germany, builders started churning out residential units at a rate of 100,000 a year beginning in 1974 ... The outcome, however, was less than impressive -- mass produced buildings that compare poorly with the prewar buildings which they replaced. With the exception of a few lucky areas in southern Germany, the newly constructed zones across virtually all of West Germany looked the same wherever you went ... and unfortunately, the clean new suburbs and satellite towns didn't result in a better quality of life. Instead, the sterile environments elicited feelings of loneliness and boredom. Indeed, many of those who moved to these soulless ghettos were soon pining for the familiar, chaotic confinement of their former cities.
VOCABULARY (3):
a. Notice in the first paragraph the phrasal verbs "sprout up" and "churn out". These are sometimes used, but they're not everyday words and
you may not have seen them before. In the IELTS Reading Module you
will see words like these. Very often, you can guess what they mean by
looking at the context. Let's try with these two verbs:
i. The sentence says new buildings "sprouted up". Then in the next
sentence, we learn that there were a great number of new buildings
being constructed. So thinking about the context (and not using your
dictionary!), do you think that "sprout up" means something like
- appear - disappear - change in appearance?
ii. Eastern German builders started "churning out" 100,000 new
apartments each year. We know East Germany was small, and this
paragraph is about a period of construction. Also, the subject of this
verb is "builders", so we know that "churn out" must be something
that builders can do. Does it mean
- produce slowly - produce quickly - stop producing?.
a. "inhabitants" are
i. people who have the same habits
ii. people who live in a specific place (the residents)
Many artists, architects, entrepreneurs and intellectuals in Germany were against reconstruction. They
But how to quickly build the urgently needed housing? Should
ANSWERS TO VOCABULARY QUESTIONS 2a. inhabitants = people who live in one place ("Many of Taiwan's modern-day inhabitants originally came from China.") 2b. urgent = it's important and we need it soon. ("I need to talk to you urgently - can you call me as soon as you're free?") 2c. narrow = not wide winding = turning one way, then the other way alleys = small streets 2d. to broaden something = to make it wider (broad is the opposite of narrow.) 2e. greenery = trees and plants, like you have around your building (I hope!) 2f. i. a pedestrian-friendly city = a city which is good to walk around. It has lots of paths, there are bridges over busy roads, some shopping and entertainment area are only for pedestrians etc. ii. a tourist-friendly city is good for tourists. There is a lot of information which is easy to find, good transport and clear signs, and people in service jobs (waiters, shop assistants in central areas, tour guides etc.) speak English. iii. an environmentally-friendly city ... well, I don't think any exist! But if they did, they would be built in a way that doesn't hurt the environment.
What role do old buildings and new buildings play in modern society?
What changes have taken place in architecture in the past two decades?
Do you think it necessary to protect old buildings?
'Facsimiles Can Never Replace an Original'
Part 3: The Spiritual Failure of Suburban Developments
A Turn to Embrace the Past
Still, not all post-1945 urban planning was a failure. A car-friendly infrastructure was established and many outstanding monuments underwent simplified repairs, including Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace and similar structures in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Munich and Würzburg as well as the Zwinger in Dresden, Cologne's Romanesque churches and the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. In 1947, donations for the reconstruction of the Paulskirche flooded in from around the country, and there was even a donation of 10,000 reichsmarks -- which remained the common currency of all of Germany until 1948 -- from the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED).
In divided Berlin, competition between the opposing political systems overshadowed the architectural debate. In the western half of the city, the ruins of late-19th-century villas were replaced by airy rows of apartment blocks interspersed with greenery. East Berlin authorities struck back with Stalinallee (today's Karl Marx Allee), the main boulevard of East Berlin, which was designed in accordance with strict symmetry and formal coherence.
But after 1975, which the Council of Europe declared European Architectural Heritage Year, the zeitgeist in the West finally turned to embrace its architectural past in all its different forms. This sea change spawned countless citizen action groups dedicated to saving and preserving old buildings and districts.
The spectacular first volley in this change of heart was the battle between squatters and real estate speculators over the fate of Frankfurt's Westend district. It was an upscale area west of the predominantly medieval town center and home to grand houses built by the wealthy in the 19th century. It had escaped the war relatively unscathed. Defending Past Capitalists against Present-Day Capitalists
Ironically, the conflict saw left-wing squatters -- including future Green Party politician and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer -- defending the capitalists of the past against the capitalists of the present, seeking to protect the luxurious residences and gardens of former traders, manufacturers and civil servants against latter-day sharks of the financial and real-estate worlds.
At the time, anyone who managed to get a hold of 5,000 square meters (54,000 square feet) of land, no matter where it was located in Westend, was permitted to put up a high-rise building. But that all ended after the clashes with the squatters, which provided the inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's controversial 1975 play "Der Müll, die Stadt, und der Tod" ("Garbage, the City and Death").
Frankfurt's municipal services building also provoked the scorn of local residents for decades. The triple-towered washed-concrete edifice was erected right next door to St. Bartholomeus Cathedral in 1972 according to plans drawn up in 1963. Three of the few houses in the old town that Allied bombs had missed were bulldozed to make way for the administrative eyesore.
Now, though, the monstrosity itself is to be torn down, and nine old-fashioned houses will be built in its place.
Almost seven decades after the end of World War II, Germany is once again by the emotional questions of what's worth keeping and which of its lost icons are worth rebuilding.
Only rarely do the authorities pull down one of those truly horrific, lifeless concrete outrages with garbage-chute entrances -- those that merit this fate most. Instead, it is the once successful postwar reconstruction projects -- which some have grown to love -- which tend to succumb, such as the canteen of the Bauhaus University in Weimar or the parliament building of the state of Lower Saxony, in Hanover.
Part 4: 'Better People through Better Construction'
Often, as was the case with the latter, the experts were full of praise. But the rest of the population was skeptical. "If I had 16 million marks, I would buy something else," one visitor wrote in the guestbook. Another simply wrote in French: "My opinion: all merde." Now dilapidated, the building is now set to be demolished.
"Of course, with hindsight, it's easier to say that not everything was successful," says Albert Speer, the son of the Nazi architect and minister of the same name. "But you must remember what it was really like in 1945." The younger Speer, who was born in Frankfurt in 1934 and is now an urban planner himself, says that, after the war, the idea of modern architecture was associated with the utopian vision of "creating better people through better construction."
Architect Christoph Mäckler, for his part, believes that modernism was popular because enlightened souls didn't want to be reminded of the past. "Simply putting two columns next to each other was considered fascist," he says. And he should know: In 1947, his father, the former master builder Hermann Mäckler, even proposed giving Frankfurt's cathedral a flat roof.
In its desperate attempt to create modern, car-friendly, "honest" cities, Mäckler says, his father's generation forgot that a viable city "is about beauty, and beauty is linked to the history of the place you are building in." Lobbying Preservationists
Indeed, when Germany's postwar renovators were deciding where to put their residential clusters and schematic developments, the historical significance of these locations was the last thing on their mind. Which is why so many preservationists in Germany are lobbying for the resurrection of unforgotten buildings and complexes.
As early as 1989, for example, the "Knochenhauer Amtshaus," a splendid half-timbered house erected in the central German city of Hildesheim in 1529 and destroyed during World War II, was brought back from the dead, replacing the Hotel Rose, an ugly cement building dating back to the 1960s. In the western city of Wesel, a citizens' action group has long been lobbying for the reconstruction of the unusual Flemish Gothic façade of its 490-year-old city hall. And, in Hamburg, people have even taken to the streets to demand the preservation of the few remaining houses in the Gängeviertel district.
Less than a mile away in Hamburg as the crow flies, one can watch the development of the 157-hectare (390-acre) HafenCity, a modern quarter that will have little in common with the narrow, winding, working-class districts of old. The contrast will be stark -- but charming harmony could result nonetheless. New does not necessarily mean inhospitable.
The quarter is being developed on former docklands not far from the main downtown area of this growing city. Once the project has been completed, the district will be home to enough offices, shops and restaurants to employ about 40,000 people. In order to breathe some life into the district, a third of the entire space has been earmarked for residential housing. A Far Cry from the Postwar Era
HafenCity is an ambitious urban planning concept that is a far cry from the projects of the postwar era, when satellite towns were erected willy-nilly in largely isolated rural areas. Here, kilometers of quayside footpaths are to frame the metropolitan office and residential areas. A marina and a university are also planned. And with its Elbphilharmonie concert hall, the city is building itself nothing less than a new trademark, a kind of German Sydney Opera House.
Financially a bottomless pit, the exciting building of curved glass and red brick seemingly floating on the River Elbe will draw millions of visitors from around the globe and give Hamburgers themselves plenty of grounds to identify with their hometown once more. Or, at least, that's what the developers hope.
Düsseldorf has already gone through a similar development. The old city harbor was rezoned and developed, complete with buildings by international star architects like David Chipperfield and Frank Gehry. The quarter has been a major success. Stuttgart's 'Project of the Century'
It remains to be seen whether a similar project in Stuttgart will be as successful. After more than two decades of planning, in February construction finally began on "Stuttgart 21," the largest development project in Germany.
The terminus station and its associated tracks in the heart of the city are to disappear and be replaced by a modern through station built 11 meters (36 feet) underground. According to the plans of Düsseldorf-based architect Christoph Ingenhoven, huge futuristic outward-bulging portholes will flood the platforms with daylight from above.
In their current form, the tracks and crossings cut a wide swath through Stuttgart. But, once they have been taken underground, the planners envisage a new city center being established on a roughly100-hectare (250-acre) site, complete with office blocks, apartments, parks and recreational facilities.
"How often does a major European city get a chance like this?" asks Wolfgang Drexler, the vice president of Baden-Württemberg's state parliament and the project's director of communications. "This visionary transportation solution will give the entire region a boost." Given that the city is surrounded by hills and bursting at the seams, there's no denying that the additional space will be a blessing. Still, most inhabitants are ambivalent about it. Indeed, while planners raved about the "project of the century" when construction began, demonstrators chanted "Pack of liars! Pack of liars!"
Part 5: The Berlin Model
Many people oppose the radical reshaping of their accustomed and organically developed surroundings. The fact that part of one of the city's listed hallmarks (the nearly 100-year-old train station) is to fall victim to the wrecking ball, and that about 300 old trees in the park surrounding the city palace are to be cut down (although 5,000 new ones will supposedly be planted there at a later date), only serves to fan the flames of opposition.
Stuttgart-based sociologist Ortwin Renn says local inhabitants are simply afraid of losing a part of their home, especially at a time when family ties are also weaker. "This is why many people are wondering with increasing urgency where they really come from and where they belong," he says, adding that this phenomenon is stoking people's interest in history, especially the past right outside their front doors.
"Whether people like it in each individual case or not," says the Munich-based architectural historian Winfried Nerdinger, "the citizens of democratic countries have the right to help determine how public spaces are shaped."
Those who value historical architecture have been buoyed by the reconstruction of Dresden's Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady. Still, that project too was initially met with strong resistance, with critics concerned of creating a historical Disneyland. But a wave of popular support pushed through the plan's approval. Given the splendor of the finished product, no one now dares question whether it was worth it. Retirees Who Want to See Their Past
Feelings are more mixed about the rebuilding of baroque buildings on Dresden's Neumarkt, an area completely obliterated by Allied bombing raids 65 years ago. When the plans were first made public, Dresden-born architect Peter Kulka asked: "Why should we grant the wishes of retirees who only want to see their past once more?"
Locally, Kulka's view hasn't gained much traction. "The people of Dresden have been amazingly intransigent in their belief that their city is beautiful -- even when it wasn't," says Dirk Syndram, the director of the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) museum, home to a massive collection of European treasures. The city's citizens have been vehement in their rejection of anything which smacks of contemporary architecture.
Only one person is in the process of providing the city with a visible counterpoint: Daniel Libeskind. The American architect is currently converting Germany's military museum, a classicist ensemble dating back more than 100 years. Right next to the entrance, Libeskind is planting a 30-meter (100-foot) wedge that both slices through the building and extends outward from it. The tip of this unsettling thorn points across the river directly toward Dresden's old town.
Perhaps projects like these will help reconcile the proponents and opponents of modern architecture by making the new visible as part of the old. After all, it's worth considering the objections that have been raised to the endless and thoughtless rebuilding of historic buildings.
Architecture critic Wolfgang Pehnt warns of the dangers of a "retro-world" that no longer represents what it appears to be. In many cities, he points out, the things that are supposed to be old paradoxically often look brand-new. "Only that which appears perfect is truly old," he quips. "Otherwise it would have been renovated." Indeed, Pehnt wants architects and urban planners to be more careful and reflective -- "to embrace what we have without denying what is new." Finding a Balance
British architect David Chipperfield masterfully achieved precisely this balance with his renovation of Berlin's Neues Museum, a construction project that was Germany's most controversial for many years. The museum, which reopened last October, combines elements of the original building with modern accents. It preserves the ravages of war and pollution, providing an impressive fusion of the old and the new and simultaneously celebrating both ruins and contemporary construction.
And, yet, the Neues Museum, like the rest of the reunified city, is a symbol of the fissures in Germany's varied history -- its rise, fall and reconstruction as well as the humanism, megalomania and barbarism that have indelibly etched themselves onto so many places across the country.
Berlin, in particular, demonstrates relatively consistently that the upheavals and scars of the past should not be papered over by a yearning for the (supposedly) "good old days." Instead, as is the case with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, even the sins of the past can be confessed, and one's own history can be commented on.
Indeed, Germany's capital attracts nearly 8 million visitors a year from around the globe precisely because you can experience contemporary history -- both the good and the bad --more immediately here than anywhere else in Germany.
