The Spree River is the heart of the competition site. Relationships between the river and the architecture are of fundamental importance. Continually the river is a place to walk along, cross over, view from and penetrate into. The relationship of the architecture and the Spree is one of dance. The people are even invited to feel the river via the canal passing along the northern border of the Platz der Repubik, denoting the original bank, water’s edge of the Spree.