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No two people, let alone architects, perceive even the most frequented cities in the same way. How do designers experience their cities as locals? Plus, with summertime in full swing, planning a vacation is on everyone's mind. Archinect got in touch with J. MAYER H. founder Jürgen Mayer H., who... View full entry
The architecture and engineering teams fought to keep up. As the terminal ballooned from 200,000 to 340,000 square meters (dwarfing Frankfurt’s 240,000 and just shy of Heathrow Terminal 5’s 353,000), they parceled out the work to seven contractors. That soon grew to 35, and they brought in hundreds of subcontractors, says Delius. [...]
At the very moment Merkel and her allies are hectoring the Greeks about their profligacy, the airport’s cost, borne by taxpayers, has tripled to €5.4 billion.
— bloomberg.com
As far as major cities go, few other places are in possession of so many treasures that are so poorly exhibited as Berlin. It's as though cultural institutions here go out of their way to keep people from visiting. [...]
The city is undeniably home to diverse, valuable and unique museum collections, but they aren't helping the city as much as they should be.
— spiegel.de
In the SPIEGEL article's comment section, reader nsmith compares the museum situation in Berlin with New York and raises a word of caution: "I read this article and I am envious. In New York City, it's almost impossible to get into any of the major Museums on any given... View full entry
Berlin has just said “yes” to Communist-era blocks and “no” to more new skyscrapers. On Monday, the city announced that it was listing some key Communist-era structures in Alexanderplatz, East Berlin’s central square, as historical monuments. It is an irremovable nail in the coffin of a 22-year-old plan to demolish the square and replace it with a “little Manhattan”—a set of 10 new 150-meter high towers. — citylab.com
"Alexanderplatz won’t stay entirely unchanged. Two new towers will still be built, one of them a twisting number from Frank Gehry."Previously:Berlin's Alexanderplatz high-rise developments continue to take shapeBerlin hopes Germany's tallest residential tower has the 'Bilbao effect'Berlin After... View full entry
During the tempestuous postwar years, Berlin was a city divided. Occupied by Soviet powers in the East and western Allies in the West, the city was split into separate states, and in 1961, the Berlin Wall was built between the two. Nearly thirty years later, Berlin's reunification process began... View full entry
Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel-based architecture studio that designed London’s Tate Modern, is due to redevelop Berlin’s famous art squat Tacheles. The massive warehouse, in the now fashionable Mitte district, was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A symbol of the city’s subculture, Tacheles became a major tourist attraction. In 2012, the authorities closed the art centre amid widespread protests by artists and anti-gentrification campaigners. — theartnewspaper.com
Berlin has become the first city in Germany in which rent-control legislation has come into force in a bid to put the breaks on some of the fastest rising rents in Europe.
From Monday, landlords in the capital will be barred from increasing rents by more than 10% above the local average. Such controls were already in place for existing tenants but have now been extended to new contracts.
“[...] the difference between the rent paid in existing contracts and new contracts is so high [...]”
— theguardian.com
Seventy years after the end of the war, Berlin is finally filling the last gaps left by Allied bombs, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the buildings in the city center. Architects say the construction boom offers Berlin a chance to make up for decades of bad planning and mediocre architecture. “This is a new time in Berlin,” says Libeskind [...]. “It’s one of the great cities of the world, and we expect it to compete. We don’t expect it to be some backwater.” — bloomberg.com
Previously:OMA wins Axel Springer Berlin HQ competitionBerlin's Alexanderplatz high-rise developments continue to take shapeLondon’s architecture lacks Berlin’s sense of culture, says ChipperfieldBerlin After the Wall: A Microcosm of the World’s Chaotic Change View full entry
Frank Gehry will be the stage designer of a new production of the Christoph Gluck opera "Orfeo ed Euridice" for Berlin's Staatsoper, the company announced on Monday in unveiling its 2015-2016 season. [...]
Gehry, one of the world's foremost architects, has engaged in arts projects in the past [...] designed a set for a concert staging of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in Los Angeles in 2003.
— reuters.com
Yet as Berlin’s property values continue to soar - rising faster than any German city over the past five years - residential developers are set to challenge the Park Inn’s elevation supremacy. Two international builders have unveiled plans to erect skyscrapers at Alexanderplatz that will stand nearly 500-feet high[...]
Though the new designs have triggered intense public reaction for their girth and ambition, they are being joined by more than 20 new residential properties in the planning[...].
— abcnews.go.com
Previously: Berlin hopes Germany's tallest residential tower has the 'Bilbao effect' View full entry
When I speak with a student about nightlife they have something different in mind than a 65-year old town planning manager. In the municipalities, finding contacts is difficult - often nobody feels responsible or capable of speaking. That should change. — DW.de
There are sleepy cities and cities that never sleep. There are cities famed for their raucous nightlife, and others whose adolescent residents dream of leaving. According to the German urban scientist Jakob F. Schmid, interviewed for DW.DE, "Nightlife often defines the character of entire streets... View full entry
The restoration of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin will cost an estimated €101m [...]. This masterpiece by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which opened in 1968, was closed in early January.
David Chipperfield Architects has been entrusted with the refurbishment project, having found international acclaim for its work on rebuilding the Neues Museum on Museum Island in Berlin. The British architect pledged to “keep as much Mies as possible” at a symposium in late November.
— theartnewspaper.com
[...] British architect Sir David Chipperfield has said that he regards private investment’s hold over new architecture in London as an “absolutely terrible” means of building a city.
In Berlin, where he employs an office of 90, “there is still an idea of the public realm. We have given that up in London. We have declared the public realm dead; the question is how to get stuff out of the private sector. We are unbelievably sophisticated at that.”
— theguardian.com
The plans call for nothing less than the rebirth of the Prussian-era heart of Berlin. A new palace is currently under construction on the German capital's famous Museum Island to replace the Berlin City Palace, or Stadtschloss, the erstwhile residence of Prussian kings and German emperors that was demolished by the communists soon after the end of World War II. [...]
But completion of the exterior may be in doubt.
— spiegel.de
Not far from the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz was a no man’s land during the Cold War. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and the German authorities made it a petting zoo for celebrity architecture. The corporate headquarters of Germany’s new global swagger.
But the ambitions for Potsdamer Platz, like the hopes and fears about a united Germany, turned out differently. The architecture was not so great. Many companies fled.
— nytimes.com
Related: 8,000 Glowing Balloons Recreate the Berlin Wall View full entry
