Archinect - News

An armchair for each month of the year: Architect Adorján Portik's unique furniture concept 'Halfway to the Infinite'

2024-08-01T20:51:00-04:00

Berlin-based architect and designer Adorján Portik has shared with us the first details of his new ‘Halfway to the Infinite’ furniture series, a set of twelve armchairs he will create for each month of the year.

The project, now about halfway completed, is targeted at students and fellow artists and seeks to stimulate a sense of discovery and creative inspiration in those who interact with it.

November. Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

November (detail). Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

Embedded within each chair emerges the naturalism that comes with each change of the seasons. November’s design evokes barren forests while, contrastingly, June’s is bedecked with a canvas ship’s sail meant to embody maritime activity and summer leisure.

July. Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

July (detail). Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

Architects will be particularly fond of the March chair, whose seat is a facsimile of an unrolled spool of plotter paper. Portik’s materials range from stainless steel wire mesh ...

Construction starts on MVRDV's new Berlin mixed-use development

2024-03-17T08:00:00-04:00

Construction has begun on the MVRDV-designed LXK Office and Residential Campus in Berlin. The mixed-use complex will add needed office and residential space to a rapidly developing part of the city.

The project is located in the Friedrichshain district. It spans approximately 658,751 square feet and features abundant office, commercial, and residential space. The complex consists of two L-shaped volumes, with the residential component consolidated into a single block. The corners of each volume open up to create an accessible green, public square. This divide allows the project to integrate itself sensitively into the scale of the surroundings.

Image © MVRDV

One of the most distinguishing features of the development is its single continuous luminous band that wraps horizontally around each structure. The band unifies the fragmented structure into a single form. This component is further activated by green, accessible terraces that offer views into the surrounding city. It also hosts ...

MVRDV completes colorful HAUS 1 office conversion in Berlin

2023-12-04T14:24:00-05:00

MVRDV has completed work on a vibrant new conversion project in Berlin called HAUS 1 that reworked an aging office building from 1997 into a new hub for innovation and community.

Other than the eye-catching canary color finish, the project is visually dominated by an extended grand external staircase. A new terraced timber pavilion space is enacted on the rooftop, completed by an arrangement of native plants and constructed using a palette of bio-based materials. Inside, floorplans are altered to maximize flexibility. Other important aspects of the design include low-temperature underfloor heating and a rainwater harvesting system that will help the building to function sustainably year-round.

Photo © Lukas Drobny

MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs says: “The newly transformed HAUS 1 is more than a gateway to this unique campus devoted to impact. It is a representation of the Atelier Gardens community and their commitment to chart a different vision of society...

Renovations complete on Einstein Tower, observatory built to represent Einstein's theory of relativity

2023-09-29T18:03:00-04:00

A solar observatory built to substantiate Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity has been reopened near the German capital after a renovation project to preserve it for future generations. [...] “The Einstein Tower might no longer be at the forefront of research, but it’s not a mere museum piece [...] Following its renovation it’s probably now in a better condition than it was when it was inaugurated almost 100 years ago”

Located on Telegraph Hill in Potsdam, 16 miles southwest of Berlin, Einsteinturm (Einstein Tower) underwent a year of renovations to address its many cracks and extensive dampness, and to preserve its domed zinc roof. The restoration cost approximately $1.2 million.

The structure was built between 1920 and 1922 by German-British architect Erich Mendelsohn in collaboration with astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich. The approximately 66-foot tower was designed to represent and verify Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is considered a landmark in expressionist architecture, with its lack of right angles, organic form, and curved wooden staircase. Originally planned in concrete, a lack of materials after the First World War meant it was built using stucco-covered brick.

The tower is still in operation today as a working solar observatory, run by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (AIP). In addition, the working telescopes are the original ones installed nearly a century ago.

...

CityLAB's new tree mapping feature calls Berliners towards a greener future

2023-08-23T12:21:00-04:00

The maintenance of urban tree canopies is one of utmost importance to planners in the fight against heat and subsequent efforts to make cities into effective carbon stores that are dually resilient against climate change while improving public health and well-being overall.

A new digital map developed by the technology incubator CityLAB Berlin now helps to improve the care of these vital green infrastructures using data and an inspired citizenry whom they also credit with helping to streamline its development since 2020.

The data includes a register of over half a million trees with information on their water levels and age culled from previous government projects. The map it creates draws inspiration from the NYC Tree Map, and others developed in cities like Athens and Washington, D.C.

Locals who use the app frequently have begun to adopt individual trees as their own, surpassing participation levels that "ignited a debate between different local district authorities as to what e...

Crossboundaries converted a motorboat into a flexible tiny home on the water

2022-12-30T14:07:00-05:00

Earlier this year, Beijing-based practice Crossboundaries redesigned a fully solar powered motorboat by adding tiny-home components making it a slow-moving home on the water.

Completed in March 2022 for a Berlin-based client, the project questions the relationships between the notions of public-private and temporary-permanent. The structure has an overall length of around 49 feet and a maximum width of a little over 13 feet. It features a set of interlinked and multi-purpose spaces.

Crossboundaries made functionality improvements to the boat by including a fully hidden bed and the ability to close the helmstand, which hides more technical equipment, freeing up space. They also featured a pop-up table for the kitchen and a hidden foldable desk within a cabinet.

As noted by the architects, “The boat is "smart and self-powered" due to a set of innovative solutions in terms of solar energy, heating source, water, and waste management.” On sunny days, the boat can be entirely powered b...

Berlin's world-record AquaDom fish tank attraction is kaput after apparent accident

2022-12-16T13:01:00-05:00

A giant aquarium containing a million litres of water in the lobby of the Radisson Blu in Berlin has burst, flooding the hotel and nearby streets. A spokesman for Berlin's fire brigade told the BBC the vast majority of the fish had died, and the cold weather had made rescue attempts more difficult. The tank had contained more than 100 different specie. A police source told local media there is no evidence the break was the result of a targeted attack.

The reportedly €12.8 million ($13.85 million USD) feature inside the central Mitte district’s Radisson Blu Hotel is considered to be the largest cylindrical fish tank in the world and was, until the accident, home to 1,500 fish. Only two human injuries were reported.

The current cold snap that’s testing the country’s morbid winter heating concerns is thought to be the culprit. Berlin police were forced to close a busy stretch of Karl-Liebknecht Street as a result of the damage.

There are no indications of a targeted, violent attack on the large aquarium in central Berlin, police say.

The fire brigade added that the giant tank "burst abruptly."

More: https://t.co/y3Ht4q63q9 pic.twitter.com/IJBKqRfMBm
— DW News (@dwnews) December 16, 2022

Inside MVRDV’s post-pandemic interior redesign for Shopify in Berlin

2022-07-14T09:00:00-04:00

MVRDV has offered an insight into their recently-completed interior redesign for Shopify in Berlin. The 1,000-square-meter (10,700-square-foot) renovation began before the COVID-19 pandemic but was heavily altered mid-construction to respond to post-pandemic work trends.

Photograph © Daria Scagliola

Adopting the view that individual tasks would continue to be fulfilled remotely, the pivot in Shopify’s renovation sought to maximize the building’s potential as a “base for working collaboratively with others, brainstorming new ideas, and engaging in the company’s vibrant culture.”

Photograph © Daria Scagliola

“This project gave us an exciting opportunity to think critically about how workspaces can be reimagined after 2020,” said MVRDV partner Fokke Moerel about the scheme. “Now people can work from home — and for a company like Shopify, whose work is primarily remote-first, that’s even easier. In turn, what was once an office becomes a space for employees to collaborate with intention, ...

A long-shot referendum has Berliners dreaming about a car-free future

2022-01-19T13:25:00-05:00

Berlin’s regional parliament is considering creating a car-free zone in the German capital in response to a concerted push from a local advocacy group. The car ban would apply to the space ringed by the S-Bahn train line, which circles the city center, an area larger than Manhattan.

Berlin’s mayor called the plan “unrealistic” back in May, aligning herself with the rest of the Social Democrats, who were joined by every other major political party in the country in their lack of support for the measure at the time of the September elections. A small group of German cities has banned diesel engine cars since the end of 2018.

Activists in the country have been pushing for a car-free city since 2019 when a group of lawyers formally drew up a plan known as the Volksentscheid Berlin autofrei. The group has since grown to over 50,000 supporters (enough to trigger the referendum) who believe the forced change of habit is necessary to ward off a lackadaisical state where 37% of the population falls victim to what organizers call the “dictatorship of the car.”

“It’s as much about our immediate environment as it is about the environment at large,” one of the group’s founders told The Guardian in October. “It’s about how we all want to live, breathe, and play together. We...

Berliners are pushing to add the Berghain techno club to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites

2021-12-27T20:02:00-05:00

The world’s premier techno capital is back under the grip of the pandemic, but that hasn’t stopped its vanguard from seeking a special status for venues like the Berghain from an international cultural organization with a reputation for being as formidable as its famous bouncer.

The Guardian is reporting that a group of club owners, DJ’s, and festival organizers, collectively known as Rave the Planet, is pushing to get the club and several other dance spaces such as Tresor added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites owing to what it says are existential threats caused by gentrification and years of business failures.

The city’s club scene has been hard put by COVID-19 restrictions that have shuttered venues across Berlin and accelerated a trend which had been affecting businesses since well before the lockdown began.

“So many venues have closed in just the seven years I’ve lived here full time. In other cities, it would be the natural club cycle at work, but Berlin is a different...

MVRDV unveils plans for a revamped BUFA campus in Berlin

2021-11-12T17:55:00-05:00

Plans are moving forward for a “low-tech transformation” of West Berlin’s storied film and television studios Berliner Union Film Ateliers (BUFA) called Atelier Gardens from London-based developer Fabrix and MVRDV.

Approval has been granted for a six-acre adaptive reuse project at the southern edge of the former Tempelhof Airport in the merged borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.

Image: © MVRDV

The comprehensive master plan will repurpose two of the site’s existing 20th-century structures into a center for social justice activism surrounded by a radically re-greened campus courtesy of British landscape designers Harris Bugg.

Image: © MVRDV

Studio 1, a 100-year-old building that has served as the set for several different important films, including Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning 1972 classic Cabaret, will get a colorful curtain-clad makeover in addition to a new skylight and other “sensitive” interventions making the 7,000-square-foot facility a vibrant space for film screening, meetings, an...

OMA reveals first quadrant of redesigned KaDeWe department store in Berlin

2021-10-09T09:00:00-04:00

The important first section of OMA’s redesigned master plan for the famed Berlin department store Kaufhaus des Westens (or KaDeWe) has officially opened to the public this week after a five-year renovation effort.

Organized into quadrants, the reorganized mass introduces a smaller area plan with improved accessibility and more wayfinding. OMA is hoping to address the changes in consumer spending as well as the rise of online retail known as a threat to traditional brick-and-mortar establishments.

Photograph by Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA.

“The renovation of the KaDeWe aims to redefine the dynamics between retail space, its patrons, and the urban environment, in a time when e-commerce is reshaping our relation with in-person shopping,” OMA partner Ellen van Loon offered. “The project reinterprets the fundamental elements of a typology that has remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years.”

Photograph by Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA.

Consisting of a concentric void...

A new map offers a unique historical exploration of Berlin's eclectic subway architecture

2021-10-05T14:47:00-04:00

Blue Crow Media’s latest update to a series of influential design maps uses 50 select sites along the U-Bahn, Berlin’s invisible lifeline, as a means of looking into the social and economic impacts of architecture in 20th-century Berlin.

Courtesy Blue Crow Media

Featuring photography from Nigel Green, architectural historian Verena Pfeiffer-Kloss’s two-sided, bilingual guide offers a lurid investigation into significant design elements of the network using examples from 1902 to 2009.

Courtesy Blue Crow Media

More than half of the current system was designed by Swedish architect Alfred Grenander before his death in 1931. His Art Noveau inspiration gave way to modernism in the years that followed.

Stations by Rainer Gerhard Rümmler served as an integral part of post-war Berlin’s unique and often eclectic mix of architecture.

The map celebrates their and other contributions while encouraging readers to observe the deta...

Cities are finding newer and more creative ways to incorporate electric vehicles into their transit schemes

2021-10-04T14:20:00-04:00

But where cities are succeeding, they’re finding that electrifying public transit can solve more than just climate problems. It can clean the air, reduce traffic jams and, ideally, make getting around town easier for ordinary people, which is why some politicians have staked their reputations on revamping transit. In many cases, city governments have been able to take climate action faster than their national governments.

The effort to reduce car traffic mirrors those taking shape in U.S. cities like New York and San Francisco. The cost of doing so has in a way become its own problem, as the infrastructure required to support expansive EV fleets in large metropolitan areas has proven to be a challenge for many of the places that have mandates for electrification coming due in the next two decades. The widespread adaptation of electric vehicles and trams could reduce emissions by 37 million metric tons a year in American cities alone.

Neue Nationalgalerie finally reopens in Berlin following a David Chipperfield Architects-led restoration

2021-08-24T13:16:00-04:00

Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie is finally back open following a six-year, $160 million refurbishment by David Chipperfield Architects.

The original Mies van der Rohe building from 1968 now features a restored glass facade, expanded exhibition space, sculpture garden, and improved LED lighting.

Chipperfield incorporated an earlier unrealized design for a Bacardi Rum corporation building in Cuba. The building itself was taken apart in 35,000 individual segments which each required their own 16-digit bar codes.

“We had to turn over every stone,” DCA’s Martin Reichert told the Art Newspaper last week before the museum reopening. “But we had to treat it with the same care shown by restorers handling a world-famous artwork. After 50 years of use with no refurbishment, there were a great many deficits—this was not just a case of fixing things, it was about making sure it survives the next 30 to 40 years without additional renovation work.”

Franco Stella's $800 million reconstructed Humboldt Forum finally opens amidst controversy

2021-07-21T18:20:00-04:00

The long-awaited opening of Berlin’s Humboldt Forum took place yesterday afternoon, ending a years-long wait that saw a torrent of missives, protests, and other public backlash against the €680 million ($800 million) project hosted by the city’s Museum Island.

Franco Stella’s reconstructed royal palace stands as a "meeting place with the cultures of the world" in the city of roughly 3.8 million, maintaining within its mix of modern and Baroque styles a dual look at both the history of Germany and of its namesake. The latter being mired in controversy owing to the erstwhile Humboldt brothers’ involvement in Colonialism.

Originally set for an opening in 2019, its construction has been delayed several times because of overruns and a slate of technical issues. Faulty air conditioni...

'Starry-eyed' Berlin's new Museum Island U-Bahn station is turning heads

2021-07-13T13:58:00-04:00

A theatrical new subway station is gracing the Berlin stage after a dramatic opening Friday.

The new Museumsinsel U-Bahn station is part of an expansion of the U5 that will connect the line into an area of the city called Museum Island.

Swiss architect Max Dudler is behind the transformation, which was inspired by theater sets built by the great 19th-century German designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

The final stage of the €500 million ($590 million) project was unveiled last week following lengthy delays that have set back Dudler since winning the competition for its design in 1998.

Photo: André Carré, via @BVG_Kampagne/Twitter

Starry-eyed Berliners can now embark on their journeys underneath a deep blue ceiling vault dotted with over 6,000 points of light that runs almost the entire length of the 180-meter station. A dark-grey main concourse takes riders through a colonnaded hall composed of granite from the Fichtel Mountains to evoke a classical feel. The new station, along with ...

Berlin to vote on radical idea to fight housing crisis

2021-07-01T12:10:00-04:00

Berlin is to hold a referendum on a grassroots proposal that would force major property companies to sell thousands of their apartments to a public-owned body. A public petition for the idea, fueled by anger over surging housing prices, has gathered 183,711 valid signatures, which is more than the 172,000 required to put the question to a public vote in the city.

The idea, proposed by the “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co." initiative, would target companies with more than 3,000 apartments in their portfolio, and would likely see more than 240,000 homes placed under a public agency that would be required to administer the homes “democratically, transparently, and in the public interest.”

The campaign comes after rising anger in the German capital over the cost of housing. More than 80% of Berlin’s 3.7 million residents are renters, rather than homeowners. Property prices in the city have risen by nearly 85% between 2007 and 2019, driven by the capital’s attractiveness to investor...

Take a look at the Chipperfield-refurbished Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin

2021-05-27T17:29:00-04:00

Nearly a decade after being appointed to refurbish one of Modernism's most iconic buildings, the team of architect David Chipperfield wrapped up construction on the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

In a recent virtual ceremony, the keys were handed over to the clients — Berlin State Museums and Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation — and the building is being readied now to re-open to the public in August with an exhibition of Alexander Calder sculptures.

The gallery, which first opened in 1968, is the only building designed by German-born architect and former Bauhaus director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Europe after his emigration to the United States in 1937.

"The existing building fabric has been refurbished and upgraded to current technical standards with a minimum of visual compromise to the building’s original appearance," notes a statement from David Chipperfield Architects. "The functional and technical upgrades include air-conditioning, artificia...

House of One, Berlin's new worship space for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, to start construction this spring

2021-02-26T14:46:00-05:00

On the site of a church torn down by East Germany’s communist rulers, a new place of worship is set to rise that will bring Christians, Jews and Muslims under one roof – and it has already been dubbed a “churmosquagogue”.

Designed by Berlin-based architects Kuehn Malvezzi, the $57 million House of One project for the historic Petriplatz in Germany's capital has been in a lengthy planning process for the past ten years.

Previously on Archinect: Designing the House of One, a Worship Space for Three Religions by Kuehn Malvezzi

According to The Guardian, the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for the building that will incorporate dedicated spaces for each of the three main Abrahamic faiths is scheduled for May 27.

"People of other faiths and denominations, and those of no faith, will be invited to events and discussions in the large hall," reports the paper.

Learn more about the project and the inception story behind it in Archinect's 2016 interview with the architects, Designing the House of One, a Worship Space for Three Religions by Kuehn Malvezzi.

Nine years late and billions over budget, Berlin's troubled new Brandenburg Airport finally opens

2020-11-09T16:39:00-05:00

Nine years late and $4 billion over budget, the airport is already outdated. Repeated blunders dented the image of German efficiency, but the “poor but sexy” capital has long been a bit different. [...] Under construction for 14 years, the airport is nine years past its original opening date and more than $4 billion over budget. Every month, it costs several million dollars just to keep the unused airport running.

Katrin Bennhold, The New York Times’s Berlin bureau chief, takes a look back at the unbelievable saga of the long-awaited and — nine years behind schedule — now finally opened Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport.

"The foundations of the terminal were already laid when it emerged that the star architect hired for the project, Meinhard von Gerkan, had designed the airport without a proper duty-free area — a vital source of revenue — because he had no time for the 'mall-ifiction' of airports," Bennhold writes. "Plans had to be adjusted in a panic."

Often rivaling in infamy with Germany's other troubled public vanity development, the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the new Berlin airport ultimately managed to defend the title of longest delayed, highest budget-exceeding, and most openly ridiculed project.

GRAFT revitalizes historical post office into mixed-use brick complex

2020-11-05T11:52:00-05:00

GRAFT has revitalized a historical post office in Berlin, expanding it with two buildings and converting the existing rooftops into commercial spaces. Accessible to the public, the new complex includes offices, restaurants, retail space, and apartments.

The original post office building is protected as a historical monument. The existing structures create several courtyards, which have been renewed in this project. Moreover, brick facades were used for the new buildings to situate the additions within the historical aesthetic.

Open plans fill the commercial space, creating a barrier-free fluidity and flexibility for tenants. Additional windows were added to the upper levels, allowing fresh entry for natural light within the buildings.

Modernizing a modernist icon: Neue Nationalgalerie to reopen next summer after Chipperfield-led renovation

2020-11-04T13:46:00-05:00

The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is set to reopen in the summer of 2021, more than six years after it closed for renovation, with an exhibition of the American sculptor Alexander Calder in the temple-like steel-and-glass upper level of the building. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and first opened in 1968, the museum is undergoing a €100m modernisation and refurbishment by the Berlin-based British architect David Chipperfield [...].

Reflecting on the significance, and also quirks, of Mies van der Rohe's 1967 New National Gallery, the architect of the ambitious renovation project, David Chipperfield, told the New York Times in a 2017 interview: "Mies took architecture to its extreme. And as a result, the building has some… let’s not call them flaws — it has some challenges, which we’ve had to address."

OMA's latest office building for Axel Springer intersects a series of terraced floors

2020-10-07T17:30:00-04:00

Axel Springer, Europe's largest publishing house, has opened its newest building, designed by OMA, on the campus of its existing headquarters in Berlin. The new structure is bisected by a diagonal atrium that opens up to the existing Axel Springer buildings, creating a series of terraced floors that form a "valley" to focalize an informal center stage within the building.

Each floor contains a covered area where traditional work environments are houses along with uncovered terraces throughout. The common space is formed by the interconnected terraces, seeking to offer an alternative to the formal office space.

Additionally, the public can access the building on three levels: the ground floor lobby, the meeting bridge, and the roof-top bar. The meeting bridge is a viewing platform where visitors can observe the daily inner-workings of the publishing house. The ground floor contains studios, event and exhibition spaces, and canteens and restaurants.

Berlin's Unity Monument 'seesaw' finally breaks ground

2020-05-29T18:21:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony has just taken place for the Monument to Freedom and Unity, in central Berlin. The 50m-long (164ft) bowl will move gently up and down when enough people stand on it, and it should be completed by the end of next year. In a guide to the design, architects Milla & Partner, who won a competition called "Citizens in Motion", say "freedom and unity aren't static conditions, they require participation and interaction".

The monument, nicknamed "unity seesaw" by Berliners, is conceived as an enormous bowl-shaped kinetic platform that invites people to interact with each other.

Image courtesy of Milla & Partner

Stuttgart-based practice Milla & Partner in collaboration with choreographer Sasha Waltz created the "Citizens in Motion" monument proposal as part of a design competition.

View this post on Instagram A social sculpture in the heart of Berlin: the Unity Monument is designed as a kinetic object, a platform enabling people to interact with each other. Its appearance will be shaped by visitors through their #participation and interaction. Construction started this week. #einheitsdenkmal #experiencedesign #millaundpartner
A post shared by Milla & Partner (@millaundpartner) on May 20, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

Originally intended to open on November 9, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the project faced multiple setbacks, and construction was repeatedly reschedu...

German military to build 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital in Berlin

2020-03-19T15:38:00-04:00

The Berlin government said on Tuesday it would create a new hospital to cope with a likely huge increase in coronavirus cases. The facility, which will house up to 1,000 patients, will be set up in the Berlin Messe trade fair exhibition grounds in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of the German capital. The hospital will be built with the help of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr.

As the coronavirus outbreak rapidly expands also in Germany, officials in Berlin hope to prevent potential bottlenecks in the capital's hospital system with a new medical facility specifically for COVID-19 patients. The country now has more than 10,000 confirmed cases — the third highest in Europe after Italy and Spain.

Earlier this year, the impromptu construction efforts in Wuhan, China made headlines when two emergency specialty field hospitals with a combined capacity of 2,300 beds were erected in a matter of only days. The round-the-clock endeavor was streamed live by Chinese state media and attracted a huge audience of citizens that had been ordered not to go outside for several weeks.

Berlin's progressive rent-freeze and building expropriation movement gains steam

2020-02-05T15:25:00-05:00

Beginning in early 2020, Berlin’s left-leaning government will freeze rents for five years. Landlords will be required to show new tenants the most recent rental contracts to prove they aren’t jacking up prices. They’ll also have to follow new rent-cap rules, which for many landlords could mean lowering rents by as much as 40%. Those who don’t comply will be hit with fines as high as €500,000 ($553,000) for each violation.

Writing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Caroline Winter and Andrew Blackman cover the fascinating political battle taking place in Berlin, Germany, where tenants' groups and landlords are navigating the impacts of recent rent-freeze regulations by the local government that aim to reign in unaffordable rents in the city.

The freeze is being complimented with an aggressive apartment building buy-back program that will remove housing units from private control, placing the homes under public ownership. Berlin is currently growing by over 40,000 new residents every year and faces a housing shortfall that, when coupled with rampant speculative investment, threatens to turn yet another affordable city into an expensive enclave for international finance.

Construction costs for Herzog & de Meuron's Museum of the 20th Century ballooning

2019-11-15T15:30:00-05:00

The budget committee of Germany’s lower house of parliament yesterday approved additional funding for Berlin’s planned Museum of the 20th Century, designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, after estimates for the construction costs spiralled to €364m from €200m.

According to The Art Newspaper, the new Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum in Berlin's central Kulturforum arts district is needed because "the Neue Nationalgalerie can only display about a quarter of Berlin’s vast stores of 20th-century art at any given time."

Current situation at the planned site for the new museum with Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie from 1968 on the left. Photo: Miriam Guterland/Wikimedia Commons.

This artist trolls investors with fake real estate billboards

2019-10-22T15:47:00-04:00

A Berlin-based artist who put up billboards advertising fake real estate projects in protest against runaway property development received more than 200 calls from would-be investors who didn’t get the joke. [...] At a distance, the adverts look plausible but closer inspection of the images visualising what the new properties would look like reveals odd details.

Treptown Visions, billboard in public space, Treptow, Berlin, 2019 by Dorothea Nold. Image: Dorothea Nold/aussenwelt

"Citizens are not being asked for their permission when investors make
such drastic changes in their city, that’s why I thought it is okay to
put them without permission up to give attention to this issue," Berlin-based artist Dorothea Nold, the creative mind behind the anonymous aussenwelt billboards, said in a recent Pop-Up City article.

The Berlin Wall made discoverable again via AR, 30 years after its fall

2019-08-27T17:36:00-04:00

The installation is part of a week-long festival running from 4-10 November for the 30th anniversary. It aims to “celebrate the successes of the revolution and to recall the joy at regained freedoms and the risks and pains of social upheaval,” according to a statement from the organisers, Kulturprojekte Berlin.

As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches this November, various art projects prepare to commemorate the events of the peaceful 1989 revolution throughout the city.

Via large-scale interactive installations, 3D video projections, and an augmented reality app, artists seek to give back relevance and historic significance to places that can easily be overlooked and forgotten.

An AR version of the old Berlin Wall "death strip" fortification overlaid on a Berlin sidewalk via the MauAR app. Image via mauar.berlin.