ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of time, and how changes in its measurement have led to greater control over the life and economy of cities. The regulation of time – opening hours – would also become a major struggle in the battle over public morality, decency and the accepted norms of public social behaviour. The Berlin of the Weimar Republic that is from 1918 to 1933 was synonymous with experimentation in the arts, political extremism and a general loosening of public morality. Beckman's argument linking fashion and wave cycles is really a discussion of public morality. Research has shown that for certain economic sectors-media, advertising, fashion, the performing arts-cafes and restaurants and bars are places where a great deal of business is transacted. In the Victorian age, time had become a central fact of economic and social life – the keeping of appointments, the running of trains.
