I thought I'd grab a few snaps of Leipziger Straße on my way from the Mossehaus to Stadtmitte U-Bahn (that is, underground) station.
Leipziger Straße was once a busy commercial street. Many of the buildings were damaged in World War II and the whole area was cleared in 1969 to make way for a development more in keeping with the socialist ideas of the time. Tall buildings were seen as more efficient and economical, as well as fitting the character of a large city. It was also felt that housing developments should be close to the things necessary for daily life - here, the tower blocks are interspersed with shops and leisure facilities (which are of course in many cases different now to what was there when the development was conceived, but the fact that there are 2000 flats here means there's likely to be a healthy demand for those services). Again we have an example of housing being placed right at the centre of the city, though of course in a way, it was right on the edge - the course of the wall ran just two blocks away.
They've been renovated since the wall fell, with new facings on the outside (which are ceramic, I think), though the basic shape of the buildings is unchanged.
There's another theory about why such high buildings were built here...
This is the view south from the northern side of Leipziger Straße. The building with the illuminated sign on it is the headquarters of the newspaper publisher Axel Springer AG, built between 1959 and 1966, right next to what became the wall (it hadn't been built when planning for the Axel Springer building started). It's often speculated that part of the reason for the tall buildings on Leipziger Straße was to obscure the view of this beacon of the western press. It makes a good story, at least!