On Monday, December 6, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., and Tuesday, December 7, 8:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m., the Getty Research Institute and the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles will sponsor Berlin's Meaning in Los Angeles: Architecture and the City, a conference at the Getty Center that will explore the meaning of Berlin's urban transformation as viewed from Los Angeles. The symposium will be held at the Getty Center, in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium.

The conference will examine how new architectural forms are giving expression to the changing image of Berlin at the end of the 20th century. Participants will also consider how architecture in Los Angeles is playing an increasingly important role in how this dynamically changing city is understood.

Berlin's Meaning in Los Angeles will gather architects, historians, critics, and others active in the field of architecture and urban planning. The keynote speakers are Jane Kramer, author of numerous books on Germany and Europe and contributor to The New Yorker; and Alexandra Richie, author of Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Among the many noted German architects participating are Axel Schultes, designer (with Charlotte Frank) of the award-winning Bonn Art Museum; Hans Kollhoff; and Gesine Weinmiller, finalist in the Berlin Holocaust Memorial competition. Los Angeles participants include Dagmar Richter, Associate Professor of Architecture at UCLA and winner of several prestigious international design competitions and Thomas S. Hines, author of numerous books on architecture and Professor of History at UCLA.

Panel discussions will cover such topics as the role of the architecture in the marketing of cities, the accumulation of history and the construction of forgetting in the urban landscape, and the use of public space by diverse communities.

For further information and a complete schedule, please call Moira Kenney at 310 440 7456.

The event is free, and reservations can be made by calling 310 440 7300.