Architecture – Page 7 – Sally Wakelin

Berlin – Architecture, Streets and People

Thomas - Expert Guide — Thomas – Expert Guide, joining the coach in Potsdamer Platz

One day in Berlin is not enough – of course! I was there to visit the Bauhaus Archives, the most comprehensive representation of information about the mid 20th C design school. I also enjoyed a 3 hour coach tour with a certain Thomas who was the most informed and amusing guide I have ever met. He skilfully took us around or past every historic point, every breath-taking piece of modern architecture with an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything Berlin has to offer the coach-bound traveller. Due to lack of time we could only leave the coach twice and for just a few moments, so many of the photos are compromised by having been taken through the coach window as the coach was moving.

Jewish Museum - Daniel Libeskind — Jewish Museum – Daniel Libeskind’s radical, zigzag design

Just one photograph hardly does justice to this complex building, light and shadows dance across the angled facades and jagged chasms and take your breath away. Daniel Libeskind

Berlin Hauptbahnhof – Meinhard von Gerkan

Meinhard von Gerkan The station looks particularly marvellous at night, streaks of light gliding through and out of the enormous glazed tube of a roof.

Topographie Des Terrors - Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer and Partner) and the landscape architect Professor Heinz W. Hallmann — Topographie Des Terrors – Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer and Partner) and the landscape architect Professor Heinz W. Hallmann

The external structure of steel rods or shafts catch the light and cast shadows giving the whole structure a nebulous appearance, quite the antithesis of the stern buildings that preceded it under the Third Reich. Ursula Wilm

The New Art Gallery - Mies Van de Rohe — The New Art Gallery – Mies Van de Rohe

Deutsches Technikmuseum - Helge Pitz and Hoh — Deutsches Technikmuseum – Helge Pitz and Hoh

IBA Housing - Zaha Hadid — IBA Housing – Zaha Hadid

Berlin Shell Haus Emil Fahrenkamp — Berlin Shell Haus – 1932 – designed by German architect Emil Fahrenkamp. Noted for its striking wave-like façade, and for being one of the first steel-framed high-rise buildings in Berlin.

Lots more building projects underway. — Judging by the number of cranes on the skyline, there are many more building projects underway.

bicycle and shed — Bicycle, tarpaulin and timber shed

At first sight this appears to be a man with no head! Actually he is bending his scarf-covered head forward sharply in order to better read his phone.

Daimler Chrysler - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners — Steps at Daimler Chrysler – Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

I was too close to be able to capture much of the facade but I love the steps. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Cyclist

Christmas Lights – including the expert installer

Berliners 2 — Two smart Berliners going about their business

Hemispherical concrete bollards – what a lovely curve

Replica of Checkpoint Charlie, complete with actor/soldiers – watched over by Albert Einstein

An ingenious and space-saving bicycle rack, German bikes seem to be characterised by a curved crossbar making them look very decorative in pairs.

Bauhaus Archive

Germany – Divided and Reunified

Architecture

Drei Linden, or Checkpoint Bravo as it was also known, on the motorway between Berlin Tergel airport and the former East Germany. No doubt originally unpainted concrete, the current funfair colouring, red with blue windows belies its former grim purpose.

Part of the medieval fortified walls of Weimar, this tower is now a club for students.

This sign is made from Corten steel the lettering cut out by water-jet. Space below is left for chalking up the day’s events.

These two empty apartment blocks, in Weimar and Dessau respectively are run down, abandoned, no-one wants to live in them. It is a problem in both of these cities, their populations have diminished dramatically since re-unification, especially in Dessau where more than a third of the population have left, mostly those in their middle years.

There is still a marked difference between the shops and goods in former East Germany compared to the former West Germany. Weimar shopping streets are quiet, there are no crowds, the shops are not commercialised , there are few advertising boards, no neon signs, just shopkeepers and shoppers quietly going about their business.

Weimar is an historic cultured town, hardly damaged during the war, whereas Dessau lost a great many buildings and so, much of its current architecture is of the Eastern Block brutalist model. There is a steady programme of transformation to create more desirable dwellings, adding balconies and colour to the flat grey facades and re-fitting the interiors.

The addition of a new lighting plan has transformed this vast grey arcade in one of the Brutalist East German buildings.

One of the last remaining stretches of wall at Niederkichenerstrasse has been preserved and the cells on the east side in the basements of the SS and Gestapo headquarters, have been exposed. It is a chilling place.

The Topographie Des Terrors is an exhibition pavilion, documenting the history of the place. architect Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer und Partner, Berlin) and the landscape architect Heinz W. Hallmann (Aachen) An extraordinary building where numerous horizontal bars both inside and outside filter and fracture light creating an ethereal quality.

I noticed this man determined to take his “selfie” against the “Wall”, in some ways it seemed disrespectful but who am I to pass judgement, having the privilege of being free all my life.

Finally here is Checkpoint Charlie, a replica, the original wooden building is now preserved elsewhere but it was here, at this very point where the first East Berliners crossed legally to freedom in West Berlin into the US Sector at 10:45pm on 9th November 1989.

More from the Old House

Architecture, Photography

There are so many corners of this perfectly marvellous house, here are just a few more that particularly caught my eye. A large white feather, from whose tail I know not, looks very fine resting on this old treasure box, decorated with nail-heads.

What dainty feet – the owner of these these faux? snakeskin shoes has left them here to make sure the ancient oak treads are not harmed by their metal heel studs, they sit here waiting patiently for her to return so that they may resume some marvellous adventure whilst protecting her feet.

The current inhabitants of this great house are slowly discovering the depths of its history, painted designs on the window reveal, buried beneath more modern plasters and a unique example of painted oak panelling recorded as having been painted in the late 16th century. Standing in the great hall feels like a walk back in time, can I hear sounds from the early days or is it all in my head?
Wall painting

Wall painting

Lastly a glimpse into a more recent past, a cousin of the Thermos vacuum flask of my youth, which my mother filled with homemade ice-cream in summer or french onion soup in winter to take on picnics at the beach.

The Old House

Architecture, Photography

On a cold night there is a certain pleasure in stepping out of a warm bed in bare feet onto polished oak floor-boards, feeling the contrast against my skin as I reach for the chamber pot in the darkness. The floor is uneven, sloping back from the window towards the centre of the house, a soft glow of the light below filtering through the gaps. It is an old house, built in 1530 they say, it has settled slowly onto its rocky outcrop at the top of a hill, a gentle slope on one side, a precipitous drop into the ravine on the other. The house creaks and moves, I am not alone here, there are rare bats who flit silently through the shadows leaving only the tiniest traces of their visits. There are other diminutive creatures sharing my little blue bedroom and its red framed window. Moths fly up when I disturb the covers, spiders extrude their sticky webs across my brushes left unused on the window sill. Now and then I think I hear scamperings, perhaps my brother’s dog or a mouse searching for spilled biscuit crumbs.

The fine white sheets feel smooth as satin, the crumbling blue plaster reminds me of half forgotten dusty corners from my childhood, I feel at peace, protected from the outside by the warnings of the quartet of geese. At last the sun edges in through the un-curtained window, filling the eaves with warmth and the raking light revealing the layers of distemper and plaster stretching back in time.

At the other end of the day as the sun is setting, the last rays snatch the chance to seep through the play of leaves and leading in the window to charm me with a display of dappled fire on the rough plaster of the living room wall. The spiders have been here too but have scurried away into the dark alcove where Puss escapes for some peace.

Filtered Light and Shade

Architecture, Landscape, Photography

A visit to the sculpture park at Chateau Chaumont brought about an unexpected delight, part installation, part sculpture, by a Japanese artist, sending misty vapour into the landscape and providing a mystical medium for visitors to explore. The carefully arranged square of water/mist jets, set high up in the trees, emits a continuous cloud of vapour for around 5 minutes at 5 minute intervals. Meanwhile the mist responds to whatever windy eddies may prevail and wanders off over the adjacent lake or hangs about making the unwary visitor damp and soggy but inspired by the soft light filtered by the mist.

http://www.domaine-chaumont.fr/en_can_can-artistes?scat=4b&expandable=1

We visited another much smaller chateau at St Aignan, where the sweeping steps leading from the church below to the chateau courtyard above provided a delightful opportunity to play with shadows and light. The balustrade of sandstone, or is it limestone, worn away by rain, catches and disperses the early evening light.

Later in the evening during a stroll through the village, we spied on people’s windows, shrouded in gaudy lace or masked by dimpled glass. We couldn’t make out whether this was a perfectly ordinary desk with its own desk-lamp in silhouette, or a more sinister creature biding its time before taking over the world.

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