"Hitler built the autobahn."

I consider myself to be reasonably informed, and yet if there might be time for any one course of study, I'd love to learn more about architecture -- not from a purely engineering standpoint, but historical and aesthetic perspectives.

Hitler's Classical Architect: Why is Léon Krier defending anew the work of the Third Reich’s master builder?, by Michael Sorkin

 ... Although (Albert) Speer’s redemptive dissembling has now been stripped away by Gitta Sereny and other historians, the Speerian narrative—like that of rocket man Wernher von Braun—still abides as a central ethical conundrum of the Nazi era: how could people who seemed to be like us become mass-murdering criminals? The impossibly illusory answer defines evil itself. Both Speer and von Braun managed their respective rehabilitations by claiming they were nonparticipants, merely present at the scene of the crime, and thus deserved to be credited for their special technical or artistic competences, which might well have been applied in other circumstances without opprobrium. Von Braun, after all, took us to the moon, and Speer outshone Hollywood with that fabulous searchlight colonnade at the Nuremberg rallies. For his part, Hitler built the autobahn.

There's another Albert Speer, as yet working as an architect in Germany: Speer's son, of the same name. The photos are instructive, especially the first one from Halle; readers might recall the book about Czechoslovak housing reviewed here.

Interview with Architect Albert Speer: 'Calamity of Postwar Construction Came from Rejecting History' (Der Spiegel)

City planner Albert Speer, son of the notorious Third Reich architect of the same name, says that reconstruction in Germany has been problematic because of the complete rejection of history after World War II. He spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about why even new buildings must be rooted in the past.