‘Design & Architecture’ Archives
Gartenstadt Falkenberg
Elizabeth Childers profiles Bruno Taut's Gartenstadt Falkenberg housing estate... Image by Ryan Hursh Take the S-Bahn twenty kilometers southeast from the Middle of Berlin to the Grünau stop and you will end up at a small and intriguing housing estate called Gartenstadt Falkenberg (“Falkenberg Garden City”). Clustered around three streets — Akazienhof, Am Falkenberg, and Gartenstadtweg — are 128 dwellings. These simple but colourful buildings sit in what looks like an almost [...]
Jewish Museum Berlin
Paul Sullivan takes a trip through one of Berlin's darkest museums... Front Garden of the Jewish Museum by Matthias Heiderich Of all Berlin’s myriad museums and memorials, Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum is one of the most powerful and unique. Built in 1999 and opened in 2001, it’s a bold attempt to express not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but also to examine the broader history of Jewish life and culture in Germany. Located off a busy road in the city’s Kreuzberg [...]
Riding Berlin’s U6: A Visual Journey
Alt Tegel Borsigwerke Holzhauser Straße Otisstraße Scharnweberstraße Kurt-Schumacher-Platz Afrikanische Straße Rehberge Seestraße Leopoldplatz Wedding Reinickendorfer Straße Schwartzkopffstraße Naturkundemuseum Oranienburger Tor Friedrichstraße Französische Straße Stadtmitte Kochstraße Hallesches Tor Mehringdamm Platz der Luftbrücke Paradestraße Tempelhof Alt-Tempelhof [...]
Happy Birthday Hilde Weström
Natalie Holmes celebrates the 100th birthday of one of Berlin's few post-war female architects... If you’ve spent even a small amount of time in Berlin, chances are you’ll have walked past one of Hilde Weström’s buildings, even if you didn't know it. One of the very few female architects of postwar Berlin, Weström helped to rebuild the city with compassionate housing that was necessarily pragmatic and avoided ostentation. Born one hundred years ago today, on 31 October, 1912, [...]
A Walk Around Berlin’s Architecture
Architecture critic Rowan Moore takes a stroll around some of Berlin's best known buildings... Buildings, in Berlin, tend not to be just buildings. They are manifestos, propaganda, memorials, battlefields. It is the city whose Wall was one of the most political works of architecture of all time. The confrontation of superpowers was condensed into Berlin's urban form, and the apartment blocks in the old eastern and western halves are imprinted with competing ideologies. Nazism, Communism, [...]
Color Berlin by Matthias Heiderich
These images are taken from the series Color Berlin by Matthias Heiderich. To see more of his work, visit his website.
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Natalie Holmes profiles one of Berlin's most unique intercultural spaces... How often Newton’s third law of motion - that for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction - seems to apply to the least physical aspects of life. Socio-politically, 1989 was a landmark year for Berlin, and the whole of Germany, with the fall of the Wall symbolising the collapse of years of oppression and the beginning of a new era of freedom and hope. It was also the year that the Chinese [...]
Trendwalk: Sustainable Consumerism in Berlin
Jennifer Haack profiles some of the sustainable hotspots featured in ecoShowroom's Trendwalk tour... Berlin’s ecoShowroom is the very first concept store in Mitte to carry a strong ecological message. It's run by Nadine Valencic and Kati Drescher, who also own Berlin-based PR and marketing agency sieben&siebzig, an agency focused on ecological, fair trade and sustainable products. As well as hosting a showroom for sustainable goods (see below) and holding regular events on topics [...]
An Ode To Berlin’s S Bahn
Brian Melican explores Berlin’s transport system, revelling in its simplicity and enjoying its infinite history lessons… How do you get from Schöneberg to Prenzlauer Berg using the S-Bahn? Don’t worry - it’s not a trick question. The quick way is the S1 heading north with a change at Gesundbrunnen or Borhnholmer Straße; and the scenic route is even easier, involving nothing more strenuous than getting on the S41 or the S42 and sitting still for half an hour. You might be [...]
Berlin’s Bunkers
Swedish architect and author Fredrik Torisson profiles Berlin's bunkers... Berlin is full of bunkers. Some are more visible than others and some have even become topography rather than buildings. Obsolete bunkers are relics that tend to remain standing regardless of circumstance; being difficult to demolish is as much a part of their nature as their ability to be camouflaged is, which makes them a series of half-invisible and more or less eternal relics. As a building typology, [...]
