Berlin Architecture in the 1980s. Virtual routes.
Berlin architecture, widely labelled “postmodern”, it drew on structural typologies and stylistic devices from the past and tested alternative urban lifestyles.
In the run-up to the celebrations marking 750 years since the original town charter, the entries submitted to the “Internationale Bauausstellung” in West Berlin in 1984/87 and the “Bauausstellung” of 1987 in East Berlin turned the city into a kind of architectural laboratory observed from well beyond its boundaries.
Even at the design stage, some were already attracting criticism as artistically misguided, and significant examples of this era in architecture have since disappeared, been revamped or else threatened by demolition. This exhibition is the first attempt to show who and what set their stamp on the buildings and visions developed for East and West Berlin in the final decade before the Wall fell. Installations by artist Isa Melsheimer and the Guerilla Architects offer a contemporary perspective on the postmodern Berlin architectures on show.
A free web app with listening walks around the city leads past selected buildings from the 1980s.
