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| Philipp Oswalt | 1998 | |
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Berlin, City of the 20th Century |
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 More
than any other city, Berlin has made its mark on the history of the 20th
century: The city was the scene of major events and trends in this century
- the Modernist movement of the twenties, the First and Second World Wars,
National Socialism and the Holocaust, the Cold War and the collapse of
socialism, capitalism and revolt - and, at the same time, these events
have shaped the city. Berlin, which in the 19th century had been a boomtown
without any tradition of its own, absorbed these influences and gave them
an expression. In a process of 'automatic urbanism' - recurring destruction,
planning and reconstruction -, the city developed into a montage of contradictory
ideological fragments. The city has become a text which tells its story
and, in doing so, reflects the history of the 20th century. Unlike other
cities, Berlin does not stand out on account of its classical beauty,
it is neither a composition which is the result of an ideal plan nor is
it the product of organic growth; discontinuities and contradictions,
diversity and emptiness characterise the city. Berlin is ugly and, at
the same time, its intensity and its individual character are a source
of fascination. Since the
fall of the Berlin Wall, a trend in architecture has gained the upper
hand which is fundamentally opposed to this and aims to turn the fiction
of an unbroken history of Prussia and Berlin into a model for architecture
and urban design. In the name of 'history', it denies this history and
removes its traces. The International Building Exhibition (IBA), under
the direction of Josef Paul Kleihues, was already pursuing the idea of
reconstruction of the city layout of the 19th century in the Berlin of
the nineteen-eighties. Perimeter block development and corridor streets
formed the central idea and their implementation led to a removal of the
evidence of destruction by war, the Cold War and the car-orientated town
planning of the fifties - a development which architects such as Rem Koolhaas
and Hans Kollhoff criticised at the time as nostalgic. Whereas the IBA
provided a forum for a liberal conception of architecture as part of the
concept of the so-called 'critical reconstruction' and involved a large
number of very different kinds of architects to achieve this, the debate
on Berlin architecture became far more radical after the Berlin Wall fell
in November 1989. SIMULATING HISTORY From then
on, the protagonists - apart from Josef Paul Kleihues particularly Hans
Stimmann, who was the Senate building director and is now an under-secretary
-, called for homogeneity of architecture and accomplishment of a so-called
Berlin-Prussian style. They used the following criteria to define this
so-called 'Berlin style of architecture': - homogenous perimeter block development with eaves 22 metres high; - division of the block - at least optically - into small individual house units; - facades of stone with a tectonic structuring of facades, upright window and the use of natural stone for facings. Buildings are intended to be monolithic and embody solidity. These rules
were elevated to become a universal principle and used in every conceivable
situation, whether in the historical district of Mitte, at Potsdamer Platz
or - in a slightly modified version - in the new housing estates on the
outskirts of the city. Their premises did not only apply to new buildings.
The same recipe was also to be used to transform existing districts of
the city and adapt them to fit into a homogenous urban landscape as part
of the 'Planwerk Innenstadt' (master plan). Stimmann said quite openly:
'The cities which I like are the ones which are homogenous.' For him,
architecture in Berlin was to be 'disciplined, Prussian, subdued in its
colour schemes, of stone, in straight lines rather than curved'. For example,
Stimmann praised the 'Hofgarten' project conceived by Kleihues because
here the 'architects do what once happened automatically, [architects]
who feel they are part of Berlin and are not interested in recreating
America in Berlin ... It is disciplined architecture.' The architecture
critic Martin Kieren even goes so far as to speak of the 'uniform as a
model' to characterise the Berlin style of architecture. Stimmann was
able to implement his ideas for a Berlin style of architecture owing to
the dominant role he played in numerous competition juries, the influence
he was able to exert on what building permits were issued and by intensive
public relations. The architecture theoreticians Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm
and Fritz Neumeyer developed the ideological foundations, and Hans Kollhoff,
who prior to 1990 had still advocated modern and experimental architecture,
became the most determined champion of the 'new style of Berlin architecture'.
The call
for 'Berlin architecture' and a 'Prussian style' was justified by a line
of argument which was a classic example of the cultural pessimism described
by the historian Fritz Stern in his book entitled The Politics of Cultural
Despair (1961). Wholesale simplifications are used to generalise problems
of Western civilisation and an idealised past is evoked which - according
to the architecture theoretician Fritz Neumeyer -is to be demythologised
and remythologised. Modernity and liberalism are actively opposed and
a community is longed for. The sentiment is anti-American and opposes
everything which is 'alien to Berlin'. Hence, it is hardly surprising
that the concept of 'Prussian style' is borrowed from the right-wing thinker
and nationalist Moeller van den Bruck, who published a book with the same
title in 1916, in which he used concepts such as tectonics, monumentality,
uniformity, massiveness and discipline to describe the Prussian style
- the same concepts which form the basis of the present debate. What today
finds expression in the debate on architecture in Berlin is a feeling
that it is time for a resurgence of European nationalism following the
end of the Cold War and the desire for a 'normalisation' of German history.
Berlin is to become a normal European city, Germany a normal country and,
following the end of the post-war era, its unfortunate history is, if
possible, to be erased from the collective memory of the city and society.
And at the same time, the 'Berlin style of architecture' is the post-modern
concept of a decorated shed for a globalised real estate market which
reduces architecture to the role of styling the consumer article building
with the help of stereotyped images. GLOBALISATION Typical
of the Berlin debate of the nineties was that the main emphasis lay on
achieving a conservative cityscape and that questions relating to infrastructure,
use or ownership issues playing no role. While, for example, most of the
Potsdamer Platz site was sold to the global players Daimler Benz and Sony
for a fraction of its market value, a condition of sale was that they
were to create the image of a 'European City' in formal terms. Stimmann
said quite openly: 'I'm for the investors. I try to keep them in check
with aesthetic categories.' And so, although Berlin had the historic opportunity
of shaping the structure of the city, all decisive urban design questions
were left up to the real estate market or bureaucrats. A large proportion
of the vacant areas in central locations which were to be developed belonged
to the state, essential infrastructure such as the main railway station,
an airport and a number of principal roads had to be built from scratch.
The city had an enormous additional building requirement (per capita it
only had one quarter of the office space of Frankfurt, only one third
of that of Munich), and the relationship with the area surrounding it,
which was still virtually unsettled as a result of the division of the
city and the planned economy of the former German Democratic Republic,
needed to be redefined.
The building boom in Berlin coincided with a restructuring of the real
estate market, which became dominated by completely different kinds of
investors in the wake of the globalisation of markets. Investors who built
to meet their own needs - characteristic of the post-war economy in Germany
and still typical when the centre of Frankfurt was developed in the eighties-
were replaced by international investors in the form of real estate funds,
life insurance companies and developers who invested in the real estate
market for speculative reasons and had property to be let or sold built
entirely on the basis of financial considerations. In such a constellation,
architects are degraded to the role of service providers, expected to
develop readily marketable property on a tight budget and time schedule,
and have to relinquish most of their former powers to project managers,
developers and quantitiy surveyors.
The combination of aesthetic conventions with economic and town planning
laissez-faire has led to the emergence of a homogenous services centre
and government district in the area between Spreebogen, Potsdamer Platz
and Friedrichstraße. According to Rem Koolhaas, this new business
district constitutes an extreme degree of Americanisation with all the
disadvantages of America and none of its advantages. The remark made by
Kurt Tucholsky in 1919 has come true again. 'Berlin combines the disadvantages
of a major American city with those of a provincial German town.' DUMMIES In terms
of architecture this means packaging the contemporary speculative office
building in historicising facades, which also simulate the small-scale.
As no legal limitations had been placed on the degree of use and only
the permitted maximum height had been prescribed, buildings were extended
downwards: the Friedrichstadtpassagen have up to five underground stories,
some buildings on Pariser Platz achieve a depth of 100 metres.
It could be said sarcastically that the Berlin conventions have in fact
proved to be innovative as they have produced a new kind of building.
A typical example is the Kontorhaus Mitte in Friedrichstraße: the
block is owned by a group of investors; Kleihues designed the entire block,
the ground-plans of the buildings, the stairwells, the courtyard, the
courtyard facades etc. He invited three further architects to design the
street facades, whereby stone was the prescribed material. In other words,
their contribution was confined to selecting the natural stone to be used,
deciding the proportions of the windows and designing the details of the
facades. The building which is homogenous on the inside presents itself
on the outside as six houses with six different facades. The Italian architect
Aldo Rossi collaborated with the architects Bellmann + Böhm to achieve
the same result without outside help for the Quartier Schützenstraße.
On a property owned by a single investor, the team of architects developed
a building complex which is continuous on the inside and externally simulates
the historical parcelling of the property by presenting approximately
twenty different facades. The Neue Hackesche Höfe (1 investor, 1
building, 12 facades) and debis at Potsdamer Platz (1 investor, 1 property,
6 architects, 12 'buildings') are further examples of this approach. In
the case of the shopping mall of debis at Potsdamer Platz, simulating
history has meant that some buildings were designed by three architects
as is the case in a Surrealistic cadavre exquis. While the architects
office of Christoph Kohlbecker was responsible for the underground stories
of the entire complex, the office of Renzo Piano was commissioned to design
the shopping mall, which also includes the covered gallery and the first
two above-ground stories of the adjacent buildings, and the Richard Roger
Partnership was responsible for designing the upper half (second to eighth
stories) of the building. The project was not only shared horizontally
but also vertically: The Roger's office designed the park facade, Piano's
office the facade facing the shopping gallery. The contradictory
desires for homogeneity and small-scale produced finished buildings with
'stuck-on' facades which seemed like oversized exhibits of manufacturers
of facades at a trade fair of the building industry. The impression is
one of a confusing diversity of yellowish, reddish, greyish and greenish
facade facings made of granite, sandstone, travertine, brickwork etc.
New dormitory suburbs, located on the periphery of the city, came into
being at the same time as the developments taking place in the city centre.
The estate of Karow-Nord, the model project of the former Senate building
director, is a typical example. The point of departure for planning this
residential project, which is located in former East Berlin and provides
5,100 dwellings for 15,000 residents, was an 'imposing image for a new
suburb' (Stimmann); this was defined with the help of design statutes
comprising several hundred pages. In particular, the form of the boundaries,
the shape of roofs, redbrick bases, upright window formats and a maximum
window area of 50 per cent were intended to create the picture of a traditional
suburb. In contrast, the questions of access to public transport services,
the progammatic mix and reduction of costs were more or less ignored.
It is significant that the office of Moore, Ruble, Yudell, which developed
the master plan for Karow-Nord, was also involved in the planning for
Celebration. Celebration is a settlement which the Walt Disney Company
created in Florida in the nineties using the Hollywood notions of a fictitious
'traditional' American town. A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO HISTORY Whereas
building policies in Berlin in the nineties have used theme park methods
to simulate a continuous tradition, there are a number of architects who
have involved themselves with the complex history of the city since the
seventies. In addition to a number of young Berlin architects, these include
Rem Koolhaas, who began his career as an architect with a study on 'The
Berlin Wall as Architecture', 1972, and Daniel Libeskind, whose focus
on Berlin began in the late eighties. In their dialogue with Berlin, both
architects developed a number of themes which are not only central to
their own work but have also had an impact on the international debate
on architecture in the eighties and nineties. Nevertheless, Rem Koolhaas
has been a persona non grata since his public criticism in 1991 of official
development policy in Berlin; Libeskind was tolerated as an oddity and
allowed to build the Jewish Museum. The particular
character of Berlin in terms of architecture and urban design was first
described in 1977 in a study entitled 'Stadt in der Stadt' (City in The
City) by Oswald Matthias Ungers, Rem Koolhaas, Hans Kollhoff et al.: 'The
diversity and variety which are manifest in the historical quarters of
the city are what give Berlin its individual character and reflect the
quality of its urban design. It is a city in which opposing elements have
always articulated themselves and which has never been successful in its
attempts to achieve a single standardising principle.' A few years later,
the designs by Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture
for the IBA showed how this special quality of Berlin can be translated
into a new kind of urban design. For example, the design for the southern
part of Friedrichstadt develops the heterogeneity and openness of the
location and, at the same time, incorporates it into a coherent spatial
structure. Baroque urban fragments, tenement buildings from the 19th century,
elements of classical Modernism and post-war urban development are supplemented
by two further typologies - houses with courtyards and slabs - to achieve
an urban fabric. Rem Koolhaas was of the opinion that a 'conceptual framework
is necessary that relates buildings in conflicting forms of architecture
and creates anchors for new insertions. A retroactive manifesto which
makes sense of the existing randomness.'
A number of works by different architects used the dialogue with the Berlin
that existed to develop a number of themes which provide a conceptual
framework for the identity of the city and, at the same time, transform
these into contemporary architecture. I would like to use a few of these
works as examples to describe this other conception of Berlin. VOID The Berlin
of the post-war era was characterised by large empty lots in the centre
of the city. The NS regime, the destruction wrought by war and post-war
planning as well as the building of the Berlin Wall had created huge empty
areas which constituted a new kind of urban space and made possible a
wide variety of temporary and spontaneous uses. Rem Koolhaas discovered
the theme of emptiness, which was later to occupy such a central position
for him, in his study 'The Berlin Wall as Architecture' He saw these empty
areas as having a liberating potential: 'Where nothing exists, everything
is possible.' In contrast to the definitions of uses by architecture,
empty spaces have the quality of programmatic uncertainty. By the end
of the eighties, he had developed this theme further in projects such
as the urban design for Melun-Sénart or the Très Grande
Bibliothèque for Paris to create a new concept of architecture
and urban design.
Less well-known outside Berlin are the works of Andreas Reidemeister,
who as long ago as 1982 argued against the urban wasteland in the southern
part of Friedrichstadt - the result of the planned motorway route - being
redeveloped with new buildings - something which the IBA did a short time
later. Instead, he proposed that the empty space, which had been created
by war and demolition and now permitted spontaneous forms of use and possessed
unique spatial qualities, should be preserved and given architectural
articulation. He proposed breaking up the block structure by a public
green area and providing rhythm in the form of accompanying residential
buildings. Reidemeister took this idea a stage further in 1992 and proposed
preservation of the large empty areas in the centre of the city, which
were so typical of Berlin - the former railway installations, the course
once followed by the Wall and the banks of the River Spree - and placing
these in the context of urban design by building offices and residential
towers along their edge.
As similar approach was adopted by the Dutch office MVRDV for its design
for Bornholmer Straße, which was awarded 1st prize in a European
competition in 1991, but was not realised. The building is conceived as
a vertical block marking the empty space formed by the void in the urban
space left by the Wall and the course of the S-Bahn. The east-west alignment
of the building volume in the former border area draws attention to the
different halves of the once divided city and makes them tangible. Empty
spaces have been cut out of the slab, these spaces accommodate the community
and public programmes and, at the same time, formulate the emptiness as
an architectural topic. The mass of the building consists of a three-dimensional
puzzle of apartments of varying cubatures, thereby creating great spatial
and programmatic diversity within the building.
In contrast with the projects already mentioned, the theme which Daniel
Libeskind developed in his work was that of emptiness. To him, emptiness
did not only characterise Berlin physically but also psychologically.
The numerous empty spaces which war had left in the centre of the city,
such as those at Potsdamer Platz, in the diplomatic quarter and the Spreebogen,
are, in his eyes, visible symbols of loss, destruction and discontinuity.
Whereas Rem Koolhaas was fascinated and inspired by the spatial and programmatic
qualities of this particular urban landscape, to Libeskind it represented
the loss of the rich Jewish heritage in Berlin, the break in the history
of Jews in Germany, in the history of German Jews and Germans. 'An absence
which cannot be filled, a break which cannot be healed.' His design for
the Jewish Museum transforms the existing urban voids into the structural
centre of the building. A fragmented emptiness, interrupted at several
points, forms the central element of the Museum. The building is built
around a centre which is absent, a void which cannot be entered and cannot
be filled. The second central theme of the Jewish Museum is the fragmentation
and heterogeneity of the city. The complex form of the building reflects
the heterogeneous elements of its surroundings - a Baroque city palace,
high-rise apartment blocks put up in the sixties, urban villas of the
eighties - and integrates these into a spatial structure. It is only its
complex geometry which makes it possible to relate the urban fragments
to one another and integrate the new building into a context which is
heterogeneous. FRAGMENTATION AND HETEROGENEITY O.M.A.
designs for the IBA and the design of Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish
Museum give expression to a programme of modern contextualism which does
not idealise a certain phase of the city's history, but accepts structures
and elements from different epochs, transforms the fragments into an overall
idea, uses spatial and programmatic extensions to remove their deficits
and reinforces existing qualities. Neither is the status quo preserved
nor is a past epoch reconstructed; instead what exists is developed further
using contemporary means and enriched by the addition of new elements.
Libeskind
developed this idea further on an urban scale in his competition entries
for Alexanderplatz (1993, 2nd prize). In contrast to the design by Hans
Kollhoff, which was awarded 1st prize, he proposed retaining the huge
residential blocks built during GDR times and supplementing these with
commercial and cultural functions. The new buildings make reference to
the different urban structures in their surroundings. A multiple order
serves to transform, develop and densify what is already there.
The approach of the office of Léon + Wohlhage to the fragmented
urban space of Berlin takes up the idea of ambivalent buildings which
can be interpreted both as a soltaire and an integrated part of an urban
texture, thereby giving expression to an ambivalence of autonomy and subordination.
An example of this is, in addition to its designs for the World Trade
Center Berlin (1991-93) and the Bürohaus am Halensee (Halensee Office
Building) (1990-96), the Wohnhaus in der Schlesischen Straße 1992-94)
(Residential Building Schlesische Straße). The building not only
defines the corner of the block, it is also a free-standing element which
permits a view of the surrounding fire protection walls and integrates
the post-war development, which negated the historical ground-plan of
the city, into a free order.
The design for the GSW-Hauptverwaltung in Kochstraße by Sauerbruch/Hutton
(1991-99) is based on a analogous idea: The new building incorporates
the existing high-rise of the GSW, which dates from the fifties, into
the urban context of the baroque urban plan and, at the same time, creates
references to the other high-rise buildings in the vicinity. The existing
heterogeneity is accepted, integrated into a multiple order by means of
interventions and structured spatially. MASS HOUSING ESTATES Unlike
in the older parts of Berlin, the mass housing estates in the eastern
part of the city are fundamentally characterised by functional monotony
and spatiality which is poorly articulated. However, here, too, the sheer
quantity of the pre-fabricated apartment blocks rules out the possibility
of restructuring on the basis of supplementary buildings. Hence, the study
for Falkenberger Chaussee in Hohenschönhausen by Irene Keil and Jörg
Pampe is based on the idea of modern contextualism, which accepts what
is already there, while, at the same time, providing it with new qualities
by means of transformation. The typical spatiality of urban design in
the former GDR is überhöht compositionally, given rhythm
and densified by means of a sequence of free-standing buildings which
are aligned to the street, giving it a spatial definition.
Another starting point which could be adopted was used by the Amsterdam
landscape architects B+B in its winning entry in the competition for the
Hellersdorfer Graben (1994). The existing artificial topography was used
to make possible the co-existence between a park which is used intensively
and untouched natural space. The former drainage ditch, which today is
used as an above-ground underground railway route, is to be deepened and
allowed to develop into a self-regulating woodland biotope by means of
initial plantings; this is to transverse the entire district like a green
river and provide the link with the surrounding area. A number of topographical
islands on the same level as the surrounding districts constitutes a park
which allows many different forms of use and is linked with the urban
districts by bridges. MULTIPLICITY On the
scale of the town as a whole the Berlin architect Christoph Langhof developed
a concept in his project entitled 'Delta Stadt' (Delta City)( 1991) which
makes use of the specific 'duplicity' of Berlin to develop a new quality:
Instead of merging the east and west halves of Berlin in a process of
'reunification', he proposes establishing a third city to the south of
Berlin, which makes use of the infrastructure already in place there (airport,
ICE route, highway) and, at the same time, serves as a link between east
and west. The parallelism of the three cities enhances the competition
inside the metropolitan area, strengthens polycentrality and permits experimental
and open urban development, which is to be helped by tax concessions and
more efficient administrative processes. TEMPORARINESS A further
central Berlin theme is the temporary, spontaneous, often illegal use
of waste urban land or empty buildings. Berlin has experienced the fall
of four German states in this century. The times of radical change, the
destruction of war, the weak economy and unresolved ownership questions
often led to spontaneous appropriations and activities, which stood out
on account of their lack of financial resources and high degree of creativity.
Such activities are unstable and transitory, and have an extremely flexible
reaction to any change in the general conditions. They have helped to
shape the specific urbanity of the city. Typical of this are the squatting
scene, the Polish markets and the club and bar scene which has developed
in Berlin-Mitte since the fall of the Wall.
A legendary example of this is the WMF -Club, whose eventful history has
been shaped by the temporary use of a number of places which are central
to and, at the same time, very typical of Berlin's history. The club was
founded in 1990/1991 when the premises of the former headquarters of the
Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik in Leipziger Straße was
occupied. After they were expelled by the owner, the initiators drained
the flooded urinal of the former Wertheim department store at Potsdamer
Platz without permission and ran the club there for nine months. This
was followed by a legalised interim use in Burgstraße, the premises
there were designed by Fred Rubin. The bowling bar which he had removed
from the Palast der Republik and transformed was installed there in a
new context. When the WMF recently moved into what had once been the guest
house of the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic in
Johannisstraße the idea was developed further and the interior designed
using objects from the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the former
Central Committee of the SED such as the office of Erich Honecker in white
leather.
A further current example of the temporary use of a characteristic place
is the Kunsthalle (art gallery) in Chausseestraße; here a former
GDR supermarket has been turned into a place for exhibitions.
As the examples described show, a number of projects have come about during
the last few years outside the official discourse on architecture; these
projects concern themselves with the authentic history of Berlin which
is very particular to the city and seek to develop a contemporary form
of architecture from this. The central themes of the city: emptiness,
fragmentation, heterogeneity, multiplicity, temporariness, formlessness
and subversion reveal a high degree of innovative potential. It remains
to be hoped that, despite all trends toward restoration and economic exploitation,
the city does not fully return to normal, but retains its particular identity
and uses this to develop potential which points the way for the future.
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Philipp Oswalt I would like to thank Stefan Rethfeld for his assistance in researching this article. published in : Berlin / Berlin, Katalog zur Berlin Biennale | Ed. Miriam Wiesel | Berlin | 1998 Location: http://www.oswalt.de/en/text/txt/berlin_p.html |
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