Rare color photos of Berlin from the 1930s to the 1960s

You should keep in mind that getting the lens focal length right is very important here, and it's something that's rather hard to do if you don't know what the original focal length and film size was.

I recall a talk or possibly HN post I saw once, where they developed some software to warp photos like this to account for camera position and focal length.

I actually don't like the sliders for that matter. I'd prefer side by side (especially because of the point that you are making).

Capital-intensive things which age well, like buildings, are very stale in a way that is shocking when you are used to thinking about nearly anything else, but especially electronics. It was a startling realization for me as well.

I think the era we are born into define us way more than we'd like to admit and it includes our feeling of being at home in the architectural environment we grew up into.

There is something along that line in Rice's vampire chronicles where she states vampires tend to prefer and retain the taste for what was considered beautiful or worthwhile when they were humane.

If you are referring to the third picture ("Gedächtniskirche"), this is intentional. The church is kept in this partially restored state as a monument against war.

As noted, the church in question was left that way to serve as a memorial. The "courthouse" you mention was destroyed in World War 2, however the "rebuilding" is something that just started in the last few years. During the time that Germany was divided, East Germany had their parliament building there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin

That was torn down in 2008 and now the new "city palace" is being built in its place, with a facade that is similar to the original palace.

I think Berlin is unusual. Construction happens very slowly here. Things don't get fixed quickly. And there is a lack of desire to change the city too much, physically.

As an example, the paving on the pathways is in a constant state of being repaired because the design is such that the little stone blocks pop out very easily. Many of the side roads are still cobbled (and a nightmare to cycle on). People don't worry about it.

I grew up in Berlin in the 70s and early 80s, and I remember some bombed-out ruins that were slowly crumbling. A bit of a post-apocalyptic sight. The ones I remember were close to the wall between east and west Berlin - real estate that used to be city center but now was very much at the margins. Maybe that was a factor in not redeveloping some properties for a long time.

Indeed, my mother visited Berlin during the 60s or 70s and was surprised by how many buildings lay in ruin or bore obvious marks of the war. Warsaw was immaculate by comparison. (For those who don't know, Warsaw was intentionally flattened by the Germans in almost its entirety.) Most of the rubble had been cleared away and much of the city had been rebuilt, albeit according to new socialist principles and styles. Only a fraction of the pre-war architecture was rebuilt (most famously the Old Town). I'm sure a difference in politics in both cities played a role—the communist regime in Poland had been the most "liberal" of the Eastern Bloc—but I don't know for certain what the exact causes were.

In Soviet-satellite East Germany, car drives you!

The site has an interesting history. The former Stadtschloss suffered serious destruction during WWII ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin ) and the Communist East tore it completely down to build the Palace of the Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin and acted as the hub of DDR government. Once the wall fell, and DDR disintegrated, in 2008 DDR's Palace of Republic was almost completed demolished, and work on new Stadtschloss which very much resembles the original commenced.

Well, there is a bit missing in this story. The City Palace was actually demolished during the GDR time and replaced by the "Palast der Republik" (the palace of the republic). This Palace of the Republic (which did not really look like a palace very much) was then torn down in 2008 to make place for a reconstruction of the pre-GDR building.

I think it is a bit sad that Germany does not leave more GDR-era buildings standing. They might not always be the most visually appealing buildings (just like the GDR was not a very appealing state in many regards), but they still represent an important part of Germanys history.

Perhaps there are more alternatives to neon signs now? TV, Internet, etc.

Not an expert photographer, but while there are plenty of more "authentic" ways of reproducing the older photos, there are also lots of post-processing tools for digital (Photoshop plugins and the like) that do a great job of simulating all sorts of film stocks.

I've messed with these a bit: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

They're a step above your typical Instagram-type filters and you can tweak effect parameters and strength depending what you're going for. It can easily devolve into gimmickry and I'm sure a skilled photographer and editor can do more without presets/plugins but for the average or hobbyist photographer I've found them to be a good starting point.

I'm not the greatest photographer, but my impression is that they mostly have very high contrast; the photographer let a lot of dark areas fall into shadow. To some degree you can accomplish this in editing, but one shortcut to interesting photos is to shoot when the sun is low in the sky which naturally creates strong contrast.

Films behave a little differently than digital sensors. Films don't have perfect reciprocity characteristics (1/2 the exposure doesn't necessarily yield 1/2 the negative density, but digital sensors essentially count photons and obey the reciprocity law quite well), nor does slide film have the dynamic range of digital sensors, so the look tends to be different. I was recently taking some pictures around town with Velvia 50 and immediately thought "wow, this looks like it was taken in 1990". It really does give a distinct look. The sky gives it away: https://goo.gl/photos/ciawuX28bbBhnehc7

There are also other characteristics that come into play. With digital sensors, you're capturing colors as seen by the color matrix on top of the sensor; Nikon, Canon, and Sony make these differently. With film, you're physically activating dye, and the dyes are also chosen uniquely for each film. So the colors can end up looking different, both because of process difference and intentional changes of the color. (Velvia 50 does not provide what one would call accurate color, but the inaccuracy is quite pleasing. The same goes for the Kodachrome/Ektachrome which were very popular in their times.)