Berlin blog / Architecture
Highlights of Berlin’s ever-changing skyline.
Coming 2018 - Miniloft Kreuzberg!
Monday, December 19, 2016
Yes – to ourselves still hard to believe, but true! Many of our guests have wished for more Minilofts, and finally there will be – this time in one of our favourite Kreuzberg neighbourhoods, between Checkpoint Charlie and the Jewish Museum, surrounded by architectural gems from different decades.
Paternoster Elevators
Friday, November 6, 2015
These days we forget how safe life is. Airbags and automatic brakes in cars, soft landings in play parks, the ever growing influence of health and safety regulation… None of these are bad things, but what about the good old days, when you really needed that tetanus shot! Well have no fear, we have found a source of everyday terror for you to...
Berlin’s Places of Worship
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
There’s a common perception in the press that the majority of young Berliners worship at the temple of techno, but that belies a truly multi-cultural mish mash of faiths within the city. In fact, Berlin boasts over 100 active religious communities in Berlin, which means you’ll find plenty of places where faith is an important part of daily...
It's here! The tram is here!
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
After many (many) years of planning, waiting, changing plans and building, the tram line along Invalidenstrasse has finally opened for fare-paying passengers. Until the Berlin Wall split the line in two, there was a good tram connection all the way down Invalidenstrasse, but it took the opening of Hauptbahnhof in 2006 to really kick-start the...
Abandoned Berlin
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Berlin is a city of development at the moment, but it is still marked by it’s emptiness. Whilst new builds and projects aim to fill some of the voids left by the last century and cater to the growing number of residents, the idiosyncratic nature of the city can be found in the buildings that stubbornly persist, dormant and abandoned.
50th anniversary of Gropiusstadt
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius’s Berlin legacy stretches far across the city. For a wander through the principles governing his design aesthetic, head to the south of Berlin for Gropiusstadt, a housing estate in the city’s Neukölln area.
Berlin Modernist Housing Estates
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Berlin's Unesco heritage sites include the obvious crowd pleasers Museum Island and various palaces, but also a scattered group of less gaudy jewels: the Modernism Housing Estates. Located outside the city center (which spared their destruction in WWII), they're worth the trip, and not just for urban planning buffs. The six subsidized housing estates (Siedlungen) were designed by Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Walter Gropius between 1910 and 1933, and testify to Berlin's innovative housing policies, especially during the über-progressive Weimar Republic.
Bauhaus Archive: Villa Katsura
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius described Kyoto’s Katsura Imperial Villa, built for the emperor in the early 17th century, as a paragon of architecture. A new exhibition at the Berlin Bauhaus Archive reinforces how much the Bauhaus architects were influenced by Japan's clean lines and elegant simplicity.
Ticket B Architecture Tours
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Ticket B Architecture tours are a boon for architecture buffs. Discover Berlin with the experts, on tours through the Parliamentary District, Potsdamer Platz, Embassies, Art Spaces in Berlin, and Sustainable Architecture in Mitte (and many more). Their newest tour, of Museum Island, shows you an insider's view of the restoration of the Museum Island according to David Chipperfield’s master plan, currently Berlin’s largest inner city project.
Landhaus Lemke
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Landhaus Lemke was Mies van der Rohe's last house built in Germany before he went into exile in 1938. This small, simple brick house certainly is a confirmation of van der Rohe's statement that "architecture begins if two bricks are carefully assembled.“