Critical Conversations: bridging pathways forward to greater understanding and creative solutions.

ARCH-451P History of Housing Prototypes in Berlin

3 Credits

Berlin has been the center for prototypical housing experiments for a century. We will study and visit four phases of prototypical housing developments in BerlinPhase 1Berlin early prototypical housing developments of the 1920s have been designated as a World Heritage Site in 2008. We will study and visit the six separate estates that were designated, dating mainly from the years of the Weimar Republic 1919 to 1933. We will see buildings by Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Hans Scharoun.Phase 2West; The demonstration projects for housing by the Western (democratic) government, supported by the US, England and France after the wars destruction. We will study and visit Buildings constructed for the International Building Exhibition in Berlin from the 1950s Interbau. We will visit and study buildings from Alvar Aalto, Werner Dttmann, Egon Eiermann, Walter Gropius, Arne Jacobsen, Oscar Niemeyer and Max Taut as well as others.East: The demonstration projects of the Eastern (socialist) government supported by the Soviet Union after the wars destruction. We will visit the large massive pre-fabrication housing projects in the center of Berlin around Alexanderplatz, as well visit the demonstration project along the Karl Marx Allee lined with monumental palaces for the people , a new type of mass housing. Phase 3The International Building Exhibition from the 1980s IBA rebuilt the area around the Berlin Wall with numerous prototypes for new contemporary housing. The architects chosen were winners of numerous international competitions. We will study and visit buildings designed by: Zaha Hadid, Peter Cook, John Hejduk, Gottfried Boehm, Mario Bota, Peter Eisenman, OMA, Alvaro Siza, John Hejduk, the Krier brothers, Aldo Rossi, James Stirling, Arata Isozaki, and Frei Otto .Phase 4Berlin has in the last 15 years supported alternative housing development with the help of conceptual competitions where sites were awarded to building groups and their architects for new prototypical housing that was based on a sharing principle. We will visit squatter type self help housing, groups of activists that developed housing with the help of the city and new housing projects that were organized by building groups that were looking for new prototypes for contemporary lifestyles. The architects visited among others are: June 14, Sauerbruch Hutton, Heide and von Beckerath, BAR Architects, Carpaneto architects, Fatkoehl Architects and other collective new office groups.